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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Slave is a Slave, by Henry Beam Piper
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Slave is a Slave
+
+Author: Henry Beam Piper
+
+Release Date: March 3, 2007 [EBook #20726]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SLAVE IS A SLAVE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, LN Yaddanapudi and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A SLAVE IS A SLAVE
+
+BY H. BEAM PIPER
+
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+| Transcriber's Note                                           |
+|                                                              |
+| This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact--Science    |
+| Fiction April 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any   |
+| evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was     |
+| renewed.                                                     |
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+     There has always been strong sympathy for the poor, meek,
+     downtrodden slave--the kindly little man, oppressed by cruel and
+     overbearing masters. Could it possibly have been misplaced...?
+
+
+Jurgen, Prince Trevannion, accepted the coffee cup and lifted it to his
+lips, then lowered it. These Navy robots always poured coffee too hot;
+spacemen must have collapsium-lined throats. With the other hand, he
+punched a button on the robot's keyboard and received a lighted
+cigarette; turning, he placed the cup on the command-desk in front of
+him and looked about. The tension was relaxing in Battle-Control, the
+purposeful pandemonium of the last three hours dying rapidly. Officers
+of both sexes, in red and blue and yellow and green coveralls, were
+rising from seats, leaving their stations, gathering in groups.
+Laughter, a trifle loud; he realized, suddenly, that they had been
+worried, and wondered if he should not have been a little so himself.
+No. There would have been nothing he could have done about anything, so
+worry would not have been useful. He lifted the cup again and sipped
+cautiously.
+
+"That's everything we can do now," the man beside him said. "Now we just
+sit and wait for the next move."
+
+Like all the others, Line-Commodore Vann Shatrak wore shipboard
+battle-dress; his coveralls were black, splashed on breast and between
+shoulders with the gold insignia of his rank. His head was completely
+bald, and almost spherical; a beaklike nose carried down the curve of
+his brow, and the straight lines of mouth and chin chopped under it
+enhanced rather than spoiled the effect. He was getting coffee; he
+gulped it at once.
+
+"It was very smart work, Commodore. I never saw a landing operation go
+so smoothly."
+
+"Too smooth," Shatrak said. "I don't trust it." He looked suspiciously
+up at the row of viewscreens.
+
+"It was absolutely unnecessary!"
+
+That was young Obray, Count Erskyll, seated on the commodore's left. He
+was a generation younger than Prince Trevannion, as Shatrak was a
+generation older; they were both smooth-faced. It was odd, how beards
+went in and out of fashion with alternate generations. He had been
+worried, too, during the landing, but for a different reason from the
+others. Now he was reacting with anger.
+
+"I told you, from the first, that it was unnecessary. You see? They
+weren't even able to defend themselves, let alone...."
+
+His personal communication-screen buzzed; he set down the coffee and
+flicked the switch. It was Lanze Degbrend. On the books, Lanze was
+carried as Assistant to the Ministerial Secretary. In practice, Lanze
+was his chess-opponent, conversational foil, right hand, third eye and
+ear, and, sometimes, trigger-finger. Lanze was now wearing the combat
+coveralls of an officer of Navy Landing-Troops; he had a steel helmet
+with a transpex visor shoved up, and there was a carbine slung over his
+shoulder. He grinned and executed an exaggeratedly military salute. He
+chuckled.
+
+"Well, look at you; aren't you the perfect picture of correct diplomatic
+dress?"
+
+"You know, sir, I'm afraid I am, for this planet," Degbrend said.
+"Colonel Ravney insisted on it. He says the situation downstairs is
+still fluid, which I take to mean that everybody is shooting at
+everybody. He says he has the main telecast station, in the big building
+the locals call the Citadel."
+
+"Oh, good. Get our announcement out as quickly as you can. Number Five.
+You and Colonel Ravney can decide what interpolations are needed to fit
+the situation."
+
+"Number Five; the really tough one," Degbrend considered. "I take it
+that by interpolations you do not mean dilutions?"
+
+"Oh, no; don't water the drink. Spike it."
+
+Lanze Degbrend grinned at him. Then he snapped down the visor of his
+helmet, unslung his carbine, and presented it. He was still standing at
+present arms when Trevannion blanked the screen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That still doesn't excuse a wanton and unprovoked aggression!" Erskyll
+was telling Shatrak, his thin face flushed and his voice quivering with
+indignation. "We came here to help these people, not to murder them."
+
+"We didn't come here to do either, Obray," he said, turning to face the
+younger man. "We came here to annex their planet to the Galactic Empire,
+whether they wish it annexed or not. Commodore Shatrak used the quickest
+and most effective method of doing that. It would have done no good to
+attempt to parley with them from off-planet. You heard those telecasts
+of theirs."
+
+"Authoritarian," Shatrak said, then mimicked pompously: "'Everybody is
+commanded to remain calm; the Mastership is taking action. The
+Convocation of the Lords-Master is in special session; they will decide
+how to deal with the invaders. The administrators are directed to
+reassure the supervisors; the overseers will keep the workers at their
+tasks. Any person disobeying the orders of the Mastership will be dealt
+with most severely.'"
+
+"Static, too. No spaceships into this system for the last five hundred
+years; the Convocation--equals Parliament, I assume--hasn't been in
+special session for two hundred and fifty."
+
+"Yes. I've taken over planets with that kind of government before,"
+Shatrak said. "You can't argue with them. You just grab them by the
+center of authority, quick and hard."
+
+Count Erskyll said nothing for a moment. He was opposed to the use of
+force. Force, he believed, was the last resort of incompetence; he had
+said so frequently enough since this operation had begun. Of course, he
+was absolutely right, though not in the way he meant. Only the
+incompetent wait until the last extremity to use force, and by then, it
+is usually too late to use anything, even prayer.
+
+But, at the same time, he was opposed to authoritarianism, except, of
+course, when necessary for the real good of the people. And he did not
+like rulers who called themselves Lords-Master. Good democratic rulers
+called themselves Servants of the People. So he relapsed into silence
+and stared at the viewscreens.
+
+One, from an outside pickup on the _Empress Eulalie_ herself, showed the
+surface of the planet, a hundred miles down, the continent under them
+curving away to a distant sun-reflecting sea; beyond the curved horizon,
+the black sky was spangled with unwinking stars. Fifty miles down, the
+sun glinted from the three thousand foot globes of the two
+transport-cruisers, _Canopus_ and _Mizar_.
+
+Another screen, from _Mizar_, gave a clearer if more circumscribed view
+of the surface--green countryside, veined by rivers and wrinkled with
+mountains; little towns that were mere dots; a scatter of white clouds.
+Nothing that looked like roads. There had been no native sapient race on
+this planet, and in the thirteen centuries since it had been colonized
+the Terro-human population had never completely lost the use of
+contragravity vehicles. In that screen, farther down, the four
+destroyers, _Irma_, _Irene_, _Isobel_ and _Iris_, were tiny twinkles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From _Irene_, they had a magnified view of the city. On the maps, none
+later than eight hundred years old, it was called Zeggensburg; it had
+been built at the time of the first colonization under the old Terran
+Federation. Tall buildings, rising from wide interspaces of lawns and
+parks and gardens, and, at the very center, widely separated from
+anything else, the mass of the Citadel, a huge cylindrical tower rising
+from a cluster of smaller cylinders, with a broad circular landing stage
+above, topped by the newly raised flag of the Galactic Empire.
+
+There was a second city, a thick crescent, to the south and east. The
+old maps placed the Zeggensburg spaceport there, but not a trace of that
+remained. In its place was what was evidently an industrial district,
+located where the prevailing winds would carry away the dust and smoke.
+There was quite a bit of both, but the surprising thing was the streets,
+long curved ones, and shorter ones crossing at regular intervals to form
+blocks. He had never seen a city with streets before, and he doubted if
+anybody else on the Empire ships had. Long boulevards to give
+unobstructed passage to low-level air-traffic, of course, and short
+winding walkways, but not things like these. Pictures, of course, of
+native cities on planets colonized at the time of the Federation, and
+even very ancient ones of cities on pre-Atomic Terra. But these people
+had contragravity; the towering, wide-spaced city beside this
+cross-gridded anachronism proved that.
+
+They knew so little about this planet which they had come to bring under
+Imperial rule. It had been colonized thirteen centuries ago, during the
+last burst of expansion before the System States War and the
+disintegration of the Terran Federation, and it had been named Aditya,
+in the fashion of the times, for some forgotten deity of some obscure
+and ancient polytheism. A century or so later, it had seceded from or
+been abandoned by the Federation, then breaking up. That much they had
+gleaned from old Federation records still existing on Baldur. After
+that, darkness, lighted only by a brief flicker when more records had
+turned up on Morglay.
+
+Morglay was one of the Sword-Worlds, settled by refugee rebels from the
+System States planets. Mostly they had been soldiers and spacemen; there
+had been many women with them, and many were skilled technicians,
+engineers, scientists. They had managed to carry off considerable
+equipment with them, and for three centuries they had lived in
+isolation, spreading over a dozen hitherto undiscovered planets.
+Excalibur, Tizona, Gram, Morglay, Durendal, Flamberge, Curtana,
+Quernbiter; the names were a roll-call of fabulous blades of Old Terran
+legend.
+
+Then they had erupted, suddenly and calamitously, into what was left of
+the Terran Federation as the Space Vikings, carrying pillage and
+destruction, until the newborn Empire rose to vanquish them. In the
+sixth Century Pre-Empire, one of their fleets had come from Morglay to
+Aditya.
+
+The Adityans of that time had been near-barbarians; the descendants of
+the original settlers had been serfs of other barbarians who had come as
+mercenaries in the service of one or another of the local chieftains and
+had remained to loot and rule. Subjugating them had been easy; the Space
+Vikings had taken Aditya and made it their home. For several centuries,
+there had been communication between them and their home planet. Then
+Morglay had become involved in one of the interplanetary dynastic wars
+that had begun the decadence of the Space Vikings, and again Aditya
+dropped out of history.
+
+Until this morning, when history returned in the black ships of the
+Galactic Empire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stubbed out the cigarette and summoned the robot to give him another.
+Shatrak was speaking:
+
+"You see, Count Erskyll, we really had to do it this way, for their own
+good." He wouldn't have credited the commodore with such guile; anything
+was justified, according to Obray of Erskyll, if done for somebody
+else's good. "What we did, we just landed suddenly, knocked out their
+army, seized the center of government, before anybody could do anything.
+If we'd landed the way you'd wanted us to, somebody would have resisted,
+and the next thing, we'd have had to kill about five or six thousand of
+them and blow down a couple of towns, and we'd have lost a lot of our
+own people doing it. You might say, we had to do it to save them from
+themselves."
+
+Obray of Erskyll seemed to have doubts, but before he could articulate
+them, Shatrak's communication-screen was calling attention to itself.
+The commodore flicked the switch, and his executive officer, Captain
+Patrique Morvill, appeared in it.
+
+"We've just gotten reports, sir, that some of Ravney's people have
+captured a half-dozen missile-launching sites around the city. His
+air-reconn tells him that that's the lot of them. I have an officer of
+one of the parties that participated. You ought to hear what he has to
+say, sir."
+
+"Well, good!" Vann Shatrak whooshed out his breath. "I don't mind
+admitting, I was a little on edge about that."
+
+"Wait till you hear what Lieutenant Carmath has to say." Morvill seemed
+to be strangling a laugh. "Ready for him, Commodore?"
+
+Shatrak nodded; Morvill made a hand-signal and vanished in a flicker of
+rainbow colors; when the screen cleared, a young Landing-Troop
+lieutenant in battle-dress was looking out of it. He saluted and gave
+his name, rank and unit.
+
+"This missile-launching site I'm occupying, sir; it's twenty miles
+north-west of the city. We took it thirty minutes ago; no resistance
+whatever. There are four hundred or so people here. Of them, twelve, one
+dozen, are soldiers. The rest are civilians. Ten enlisted men, a non-com
+of some sort, and something that appears to be an officer. The officer
+had a pistol, fully loaded. The non-com had a submachine gun, empty,
+with two loaded clips on his belt. The privates had rifles, empty, and
+no ammunition. The officer did not know where the rifle ammunition was
+stored."
+
+Shatrak swore. The second lieutenant nodded. "Exactly my comment when he
+told me, sir. But this place is beautifully kept up. Lawns all mowed,
+trees neatly pruned, everything policed up like inspection morning. And
+there is a headquarters office building here adequate for an army
+division...."
+
+"How about the armament, Lieutenant?" Shatrak asked with forced
+patience.
+
+"Ah, yes; the armament, sir. There are eight big launching cradles for
+panplanetary or off-planet missiles. They are all polished up like the
+Crown Jewels. But none, repeat none, of them is operative. And there is
+not a single missile on the installation."
+
+Shatrak's facial control didn't slip. It merely intensified, which
+amounted to the same thing.
+
+"Lieutenant Carmath, I am morally certain I heard you correctly, but
+let's just check. You said...."
+
+He repeated the lieutenant back, almost word for word. Carmath nodded.
+
+"That was it, sir. The missile-crypts are stacked full of
+old photoprints and recording and microfilm spools. The
+sighting-and-guidance systems for all the launchers are completely
+missing. The letoff mechanisms all lack major parts. There is an
+elaborate set of detection equipment, which will detect absolutely
+nothing. I saw a few pairs of binoculars about; I suspect that that is
+what we were first observed with."
+
+"This office, now; I suppose all the paperwork is up to the minute in
+quintulplicate, and initialed by everybody within sight or hearing?"
+
+"I haven't checked on that yet, sir. If you're thinking of betting on
+it, please don't expect me to cover you, though."
+
+"Well, thank you, Lieutenant Carmath. Stick around; I'm sending down a
+tech-intelligence crew to look at what's left of the place. While
+you're waiting, you might sort out whoever seems to be in charge and
+find out just what in Nifflheim he thinks that launching-station was
+maintained for."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I think I can tell you that, now, Commodore," Prince Trevannion said as
+Shatrak blanked the screen. "We have a petrified authoritarianism. Quite
+likely some sort of an oligarchy; I'd guess that this Convocation thing
+they talk about consists of all the ruling class, everybody has equal
+voice, and nobody will take the responsibility for doing anything. And
+the actual work of government is probably handled by a corps of
+bureaucrats entrenched in their jobs, unwilling to exert any effort and
+afraid to invite any criticism, and living only to retire on their
+pensions. I've seen governments like that before." He named a few. "One
+thing; once a government like that has been bludgeoned into the Empire,
+it rarely makes any trouble later."
+
+"Just to judge by this missileless non-launching station," Shatrak said,
+"they couldn't even decide on what kind of trouble to make, or how to
+start it. I think you're going to have a nice easy Proconsulate here,
+Count Erskyll."
+
+Count Erskyll started to say something. No doubt he was about to tell
+Shatrak, cuttingly, that he didn't want an easy Proconsulate, but an
+opportunity to help these people. He was saved from this by the buzzing
+of Shatrak's communication-screen.
+
+It was Colonel Pyairr Ravney, the Navy Landing-Troop commander. Like
+everybody else who had gone down to Zeggensburg, he was in battle-dress
+and armed; the transpex visor of his helmet was pushed up. Between
+Shatrak's generation and Count Erskyll's, he sported a pointed mustache
+and a spiky chin-beard, which, on his thin and dark-eyed face, looked
+distinctly Mephistophelean. He was grinning.
+
+"Well, sir, I think we can call it a done job," he said. "There's a
+delegation here who want to talk to the Lords-Master of the ships on
+behalf of the Lords-Master of the Convocation. Two of them, with about a
+dozen portfolio-bearers and note-takers. I'm not too good in Lingua
+Terra, outside Basic, at best, and their brand is far from that. I
+gather that they're some kind of civil-servants, personal
+representatives of the top Lords-Master."
+
+"Do we want to talk to them?" Shatrak asked.
+
+"Well, we should only talk to the actual, titular, heads of the
+government--Mastership," Erskyll, suddenly protocol-conscious, objected.
+"We can't negotiate with subordinates."
+
+"Oh, who's talking about negotiating; there isn't anything to negotiate.
+Aditya is now a part of the Galactic Empire. If this present regime
+assents to that, they can stay in power. If not, we will toss them out
+and install a new government. We will receive this delegation, inform
+them to that effect, and send them back to relay the information to
+their Lords-Master." He turned to the Commodore. "May I speak to Colonel
+Ravney?"
+
+Shatrak assented. He asked Ravney where these Lords-Master were.
+
+"Here in the Citadel, in what they call the Convocation Chamber. Close
+to a thousand of them, screaming recriminations at one another. Sounds
+like feeding time at the Imperial Zoo. I think they all want to
+surrender, but nobody dares propose it first. I've just put a cordon
+around it and placed it off limits to everybody. And everything outside
+off limits to the Convocation."
+
+"Well thought of, Colonel. I suppose the Citadel teems with bureaucrats
+and such low life-forms?"
+
+"Bulging with them. Literally thousands. Lanze Degbrend and Commander
+Douvrin and a few others are trying to get some sensible answers out of
+some of them."
+
+"This delegation; how had you thought of sending them up?"
+
+"Landing-craft to _Isobel_; _Isobel_ will bring them the rest of the
+way."
+
+He looked at his watch. "Well, don't be in too much of a rush to get
+them here, Colonel. We don't want them till after lunch. Delay them on
+_Isobel_; the skipper can see that they have their own lunch aboard. And
+entertain them with some educational films. Something to convince them
+that there is slightly more to the Empire than one ship-of-the-line, two
+cruisers and four destroyers."
+
+Count Erskyll was dissatisfied about that, too. He wanted to see the
+delegation at once and make arrangements to talk to their superiors.
+Count Erskyll, among other things, was zealous, and of this he
+disapproved. Zealous statesmen perhaps did more mischief than anything
+in the Galaxy--with the possible exception of procrastinating soldiers.
+That could indicate the fundamental difference between statecraft and
+war. He'd have to play with that idea a little.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An Empire ship-of-the-line was almost a mile in diameter. It was more
+than a battle-craft; it also had political functions. The grand salon,
+on the outer zone where the curvature of the floors was less
+disconcerting, was as magnificent as any but a few of the rooms of the
+Imperial Palace at Asgard on Odin, the floor richly carpeted and the
+walls alternating mirrors and paintings. The movable furniture varied
+according to occasion; at present, it consisted of the bare desk at
+which they sat, the three chairs they occupied, and the three
+secretary-robots, their rectangular black casts blazened with the Sun
+and Cogwheel of the Empire. It faced the door, at the far end of the
+room; on either side, a rank of spacemen, in dress uniform and under
+arms, stood.
+
+In principle, annexing a planet to the Empire was simplicity itself, but
+like so many things simple in principle, it was apt to be complicated in
+practice, and to this, he suspected, the present instance would be no
+exception.
+
+In principle, one simply informed the planetary government that it was
+now subject to the sovereignty of his Imperial Majesty, the Galactic
+Emperor. This information was always conveyed by a Ministerial
+Secretary, directly under the Prime Minister and only one more step down
+from the Emperor, in the present instance Jurgen, Prince Trevannion. To
+make sure that the announcement carried conviction, the presumedly glad
+tidings were accompanied by the Imperial Space Navy, at present
+represented by Commodore Vann Shatrak and a seven ship battle-line unit,
+and two thousand Imperial Landing-Troops.
+
+When the locals had been properly convinced--with as little bloodshed as
+necessary, but always beyond any dispute--an Imperial Proconsul, in this
+case Obray, Count Erskyll, would be installed. He would by no means
+govern the planet. The Imperial Constitution was definite on that point;
+every planetary government should be sovereign as to intraplanetary
+affairs. The Proconsul, within certain narrow and entirely inelastic
+limits, would merely govern the government.
+
+Unfortunately, Obray, Count Erskyll, appeared not to understand this
+completely. It was his impression that he was a torch-bearer of Imperial
+civilization, or something equally picturesque and metaphorical. As he
+conceived it, it was the duty of the Empire, as represented by himself,
+to make over backward planets like Aditya in the image of Odin or Marduk
+or Osiris or Baldur or, preferably, his own home world of Aton.
+
+This was Obray of Erskyll's first proconsular appointment, it was due to
+family influence, and it was a mistake. Mistakes, of course, were
+inevitable in anything as large and complex as the Galactic Empire, and
+any institution guided by men was subject to one kind of influence or
+another, family influence being no worse than any other kind. In this
+case, the ultra-conservative Erskylls of Aton, from old Errol, Duke of
+Yorvoy, down, had become alarmed at the political radicalism of young
+Obray, and had, on his graduation from the University of Nefertiti,
+persuaded the Prime Minister to appoint him to a Proconsulate as far
+from Aton as possible, where he would not embarrass them. Just at that
+time, more important matters having been gotten out of the way, Aditya
+had come up for annexation, and Obray of Erskyll had been named
+Proconsul.
+
+That had been the mistake. He should have been sent to some planet which
+had been under Imperial rule for some time, where the Proconsulate ran
+itself in a well-worn groove, and where he could at leisure learn the
+procedures and unlearn some of the unrealisms absorbed at the University
+from professors too well insulated from the realities of politics.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a stir among the guards; helmet-visors were being snapped
+down; feet scuffed. They stiffened to attention, the great doors at the
+other end of the grand salon slid open, and the guards presented arms as
+the Adityan delegation was ushered in.
+
+There were fourteen of them. They all wore ankle-length gowns, and they
+all had shaven heads. The one in the lead carried a staff and wore a
+pale green gown; he was apparently a herald. Behind him came two in
+white gowns, their empty hands folded on their breasts; one was a huge
+bulk of obesity with a bulging brow, protuberant eyes and a pursey
+little mouth, and the other was thin and cadaverous, with a skull-like,
+almost fleshless face. The ones behind, in dark green and pale blue,
+carried portfolios and slung sound-recorder cases. There was a metallic
+twinkle at each throat; as they approached, he could see that they all
+wore large silver gorgets. They came to a halt twenty feet from the
+desk. The herald raised his staff.
+
+"I present the Admirable and Trusty Tchall Hozhet, personal chief-slave
+of the Lord-Master Olvir Nikkolon, Chairman of the Presidium of the
+Lords-Master's Convocation, and Khreggor Chmidd, chief-slave in office
+to the Lord-Master Rovard Javasan, Chief of Administration of
+Management of the Mastership," he said. Then he stopped, puzzled,
+looking from one to another of them. When his eyes fell on Vann Shatrak,
+he brightened.
+
+"Are you," he asked, "the chief-slave of the chief Lord-Master of this
+ship?"
+
+Shatrak's face turned pink; the pink darkened to red. He used a word; it
+was a completely unprintable word. So, except for a few scattered
+pronouns, conjunctions and prepositions, were the next fifty words he
+used. The herald stiffened. The two delegates behind him were aghast.
+The subordinate burden-bearers in the rear began looking around
+apprehensively.
+
+"I," Shatrak finally managed, "am an officer of his Imperial Majesty's
+Space Navy. I am in command of this battle-line unit. I am _not_"--he
+reverted briefly to obscenity--"a slave."
+
+"You mean, you are a Lord-Master, too?" That seemed to horrify the
+herald even more that the things Shatrak had been calling him. "Forgive
+me, Lord-Master. I did not think...."
+
+"That's right; you didn't," Shatrak agreed. "And don't call me
+Lord-Master again, or I'll...."
+
+"Just a moment, Commodore." He waved the herald aside and addressed the
+two in white gowns, shifting to Lingua Terra. "This is a ship of the
+Galactic Empire," he told them. "In the Empire, there are no slaves. Can
+you understand that?"
+
+Evidently not. The huge one, Khreggor Chmidd, turned to the skull-faced
+Tchall Hozhet, saying: "Then they must all be Lords-Master." He saw the
+objection to that at once. "But how can one be a Lord-Master if there
+are no slaves?"
+
+The horror was not all on the visitors' side of the desk, either. Obray
+of Erskyll was staring at the delegation and saying, "Slaves!" under his
+breath. Obray of Erskyll had never, in his not-too-long life, seen a
+slave before.
+
+"They can't be," Tchall Hozhet replied. "A Lord-Master is one who owns
+slaves." He gave that a moment's consideration. "But if they aren't
+Lords-Master, they must be slaves, and...." No. That wouldn't do,
+either. "But a slave is one who belongs to a Lord-Master."
+
+Rule of the Excluded Third; evidently Pre-Atomic formal logic had crept
+back to Aditya. Chmidd, looking around, saw the ranks of spacemen on
+either side, now at parade-rest.
+
+"But aren't they slaves?" he asked.
+
+"They are spacemen of the Imperial Navy," Shatrak roared. "Call one a
+slave to his face and you'll get a rifle-butt in yours. And I shan't
+lift a finger to stop it." He glared at Chmidd and Hozhet. "Who had the
+infernal impudence to send slaves to deal with the Empire? He needs to
+be taught a lesson."
+
+"Why, I was sent by the Lord-Master Olvir Nikkolon, and...."
+
+"Tchall!" Chmidd hissed at him. "We cannot speak to Lords-Master. We
+must speak to their chief-slaves."
+
+"But they have no slaves," Hozhet objected. "Didn't you hear the ... the
+one with the small beard ... say so?"
+
+"But that's ridiculous, Khreggor. Who does the work, and who tells them
+what to do? Who told these people to come here?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Our Emperor sent us. That is his picture, behind me. But we are not his
+slaves. He is merely the chief man among us. Do your Masters not have
+one among them who is chief?"
+
+"That's right," Chmidd said to Hozhet. "In the Convocation, your
+Lord-Master is chief, and in the Mastership, my Lord-Master, Rovard
+Javasan, is chief."
+
+"But they don't tell the other Lords-Master what to do. In Convocation,
+the other Lords-Master tell them...."
+
+"That's what I meant about an oligarchy," he whispered, in Imperial, to
+Erskyll.
+
+"Suppose we tell Ravney to herd these Lords-Master onto a couple of
+landing-craft and bring them up here?" Shatrak suggested. He made the
+suggestion in Lingua Terra Basic, and loudly.
+
+"I think we can manage without that." He raised his voice, speaking in
+Lingua Terra Basic:
+
+"It does not matter whether these slaves talk to us or not. This planet
+is now under the rule of his Imperial Majesty, Rodrik III. If this
+Mastership wants to govern the planet under the Emperor, they may do so.
+If not, we will make an end of them and set up a new government here."
+
+He paused. Chmidd and Hozhet were looking at one another in shocked
+incredulity.
+
+"Tchall, they mean it," Chmidd said. "They can do it, too."
+
+"We have nothing more to say to you slaves," he continued. "Hereafter,
+we will speak directly to the Lords-Master."
+
+"But.... The Lords-Master never do business directly," Hozhet said. "It
+is un-Masterly. Such discussions are between chief-slaves."
+
+"This thing they call the Convocation," Shatrak mentioned. "I wonder if
+the members have the business done entirely through their slaves."
+
+"Oh, no!" That shocked Chmidd into direct address. "No slave is allowed
+in the Convocation Chamber."
+
+He wondered how they kept the place swept out. Robots, no doubt. Or
+else, what happened when the Masters weren't there didn't count.
+
+"Very well. Your people have recorders; are they on?"
+
+Hozhet asked Chmidd; Chmidd asked the herald, who asked one of the
+menials in the rear, who asked somebody else. The reply came back
+through the same channels; they were.
+
+"Very well. At this time tomorrow, we will speak to the Convocation of
+Lords-Master. Commodore Shatrak, see to it that Colonel Ravney has them
+in the Convocation Chamber, and that preparations in the room are made,
+so that we may address them in the dignity befitting representatives of
+his Imperial Majesty." He turned to the Adityan slaves. "That is all.
+You have permission to go."
+
+They watched the delegation back out, with the honor-guard following.
+When the doors had closed behind them, Shatrak ran his hand over his
+bald head and laughed.
+
+"Shaved heads, every one of them. That's probably why they thought I was
+your slave. Bet those gorgets are servile badges, too." He touched the
+Knight's Star of the Order of the Empire at his throat. "Probably
+thought that was what this was. We would have to draw something like
+this!"
+
+"They simply can't imagine anybody not being either a slave or a
+slave-owner," Erskyll was saying. "That must mean that there is no free
+non-slave-holding class at all. Universal slavery! Well, we'll have to
+do something about that. Proclaim total emancipation, immediately."
+
+"Oh, no; we can't do anything like that. The Constitution won't permit
+us to. Section Two, Article One: _Every Empire planet shall be
+self-governed as to its own affairs, in the manner of its own choice,
+and without interference._"
+
+"But slavery.... Section Two, Article Six," Erskyll objected. "_There
+shall be no chattel slavery or serfdom anywhere in the Empire; no
+sapient being of any race whatsoever shall be the property of any being
+but himself._"
+
+"That's correct," he agreed. "If this Mastership intends to remain the
+planetary government under the Empire, they will be obliged to abolish
+slavery, but they will have to do it by their own act. We cannot do it
+for them."
+
+"You know what I'd do, Prince Trevannion?" Shatrak said. "I'd just heave
+this Mastership thing out, and set up a nice tight military
+dictatorship. We have the planet under martial rule now; let's just keep
+it that way for about five years, till we can train a new government."
+
+That suggestion seemed to pain Count Erskyll almost as much as the
+existing situation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They dined late, in Commodore Shatrak's private dining room. Beside
+Shatrak, Erskyll and himself, there were Lanze Degbrend, and Count
+Erskyll's charge-d'affaires, Sharll Ernanday, and Patrique Morvill and
+Pyairr Ravney and the naval intelligence officer, Commander Andrey
+Douvrin. Ordinarily, he deplored serious discussion at meals, but under
+the circumstances it was unavoidable; nobody could think or talk of
+anything else. The discussion which he had hoped would follow the meal
+began before the soup-course.
+
+"We have a total population of about twenty million," Lanze Degbrend
+reported. "A trifle over ten thousand Masters, all ages and both sexes.
+The remainder are all slaves."
+
+"I find that incredible," Erskyll declared promptly. "Twenty million
+people, held in slavery by ten thousand! Why do they stand for it? Why
+don't they rebel?"
+
+"Well, I can think of three good reasons," Douvrin said. "Three square
+meals a day."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"And no responsibilities; no need to make decisions," Degbrend added.
+"They've been slaves for seven and a half centuries. They don't even
+know the meaning of freedom, and it would frighten them if they did."
+
+"Chain of command," Shatrak said. When that seemed not to convey any
+meaning to Erskyll, he elaborated: "We have a lot of dirty-necked
+working slaves. Over every dozen of them is an overseer with a big whip
+and a stungun. Over every couple of overseers there is a guard with a
+submachine gun. Over them is a supervisor, who doesn't need a gun
+because he can grab a handphone and call for troops. Over the
+supervisors, there are higher supervisors. Everybody has it just enough
+better than the level below him that he's afraid of losing his job and
+being busted back to fieldhand."
+
+"That's it exactly, Commodore," Degbrend said. "The whole society is a
+slave hierarchy. Everybody curries favor with the echelon above, and
+keeps his eye on the echelon below to make sure he isn't being undercut.
+We have something not too unlike that, ourselves. Any organizational
+society is, in some ways, like a slave society. And everything is
+determined by established routine. The whole thing has simply been
+running on momentum for at least five centuries, and if we hadn't come
+smashing in with a situation none of the routines covered, it would have
+kept on running for another five, till everything wore out and stopped.
+I heard about those missile-stations, by the way. They're typical of
+everything here."
+
+"That's another thing," Erskyll interrupted. "These Lords-Master are the
+descendants of the old Space-Vikings, and the slaves of the original
+inhabitants. The Space Vikings were a technologically advanced people;
+they had all the old Terran Federation science and technology, and a lot
+they developed for themselves on the Sword-Worlds."
+
+"Well? They still had a lot of it, on the Sword-Worlds, two centuries
+ago when we took them over."
+
+"But technology always drives out slavery; that's a fundamental law of
+socio-economics. Slavery is economically unsound; it cannot compete with
+power-industry, let alone cybernetics and robotics."
+
+He was tempted to remind young Obray of Erskyll that there were no such
+things as fundamental laws of socio-economics; merely usually reliable
+generalized statements of what can more or less be depended upon to
+happen under most circumstances. He resisted the temptation. Count
+Erskyll had had enough shocks, today, without adding to them by
+gratuitous blasphemy.
+
+"In this case, Obray, it worked in reverse. The Space Vikings enslaved
+the Adityans to hold them in subjugation. That was a politico-military
+necessity. Then, being committed to slavery, with a slave population who
+had to be made to earn their keep, they found cybernetics and robotics
+economically unsound."
+
+"And almost at once, they began appointing slave overseers, and the
+technicians would begin training slave assistants. Then there would be
+slave supervisors to direct the overseers, slave administrators to
+direct them, slave secretaries and bookkeepers, slave technicians and
+engineers."
+
+"How about the professions, Lanze?"
+
+"All slave. Slave physicians, teachers, everything like that. All the
+Masters are taught by slaves; the slaves are educated by apprenticeship.
+The courts are in the hands of slaves; cases are heard by the chief
+slaves of judges who don't even know where their own courtrooms are;
+every Master has a team of slave lawyers. Most of the lawsuits are
+estate-inheritance cases; some of them have been in litigation for
+generations."
+
+"What do the Lords-Master do?" Shatrak asked.
+
+"Masterly things," Degbrend replied. "I was only down there since noon,
+but from what I could find out, that consists of feasting, making love
+to each other's wives, being entertained by slave performers, and
+feuding for social precedence like wealthy old ladies on Odin."
+
+"You got this from the slaves? How did you get them to talk, Lanze?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Degbrend and Ravney exchanged amused glances. Ravney said:
+
+"Well, I detailed a sergeant and six privates to accompany Honorable
+Degbrend," Ravney said. "They.... How would you put it, Lanze?"
+
+"I asked a slave a question. If he refused to answer, somebody knocked
+him down with a rifle-butt," Degbrend replied. "I never had to do that
+more than once in any group, and I only had to do it three times in all.
+After that, when I asked questions, I was answered promptly and fully.
+It is surprising how rapidly news gets around the Citadel."
+
+"You mean you had those poor slaves beaten?" Erskyll demanded.
+
+"Oh, no. Beating implies repeated blows. We only gave one to a customer;
+that was enough."
+
+"Well, how about the army, if that's what those people in the long
+red-brown coats were?" Shatrak changed the subject by asking Ravney.
+
+"All slave, of course, officers and all. What will we do about them,
+sir? I have about three thousand, either confined to their barracks or
+penned up in the Citadel. I requisitioned food for them, paid for it in
+chits. There were a few isolated companies and platoons that gave us
+something of a fight; most of them just threw away their weapons and
+bawled for quarter. I've segregated the former; with your approval, I'll
+put them under Imperial officers and noncoms for a quickie training in
+our tactics, and then use them to train the rest."
+
+"Do that, Pyairr. We only have two thousand men of our own, and that's
+not enough. Do you think you can make soldiers out of any of them?"
+
+"Yes, I believe so, sir. They are trained, organized and armed for
+civil-order work, which is what we'll need them for ourselves. In the
+entire history of this army, all they have done has been to overawe
+unarmed slaves; I am sure they have never been in combat with regular
+troops. They have an elaborate set of training and field regulations for
+the sort of work for which they were intended. What they encountered
+today was entirely outside those regulations, which is why they behaved
+as they did."
+
+"Did you have any trouble getting cooperation from the native officers?"
+Shatrak asked.
+
+"Not in the least. They cooperated quite willingly, if not always too
+intelligently. I simply told them that they were now the personal
+property of his Imperial Majesty, Rodrik III. They were quite flattered
+by the change of ownership. If ordered to, I believe that they would
+fire on their former Lords-Master without hesitation."
+
+"You told those slaves that they ... _belonged_ ... to the _Emperor_?"
+
+Count Erskyll was aghast. He stared at Ravney for an instant, then
+snatched up his brandy-glass--the meal had gotten to that point--and
+drained it at a gulp. The others watched solicitously while he coughed
+and spluttered over it.
+
+"Commodore Shatrak," he said sternly. "I hope that you will take severe
+disciplinary action; this is the most outrageous...."
+
+"I'll do nothing of the sort," Shatrak retorted. "The colonel is to be
+commended; did the best thing he could, under the circumstances. What
+are you going to do when slavery is abolished here, Colonel?"
+
+"Oh, tell them that they have been given their freedom as a special
+reward for meritorious service, and then sign them up for a five year
+enlistment."
+
+"That might work. Again, it might not."
+
+"I think, Colonel, that before you do that, you had better disarm them
+again. You might possibly have some trouble, otherwise."
+
+Ravney looked at him sharply. "They might not want to be free? I'd
+thought of that."
+
+"Nonsense!" Erskyll declared. "Who ever heard of slaves rebelling
+against freedom?"
+
+Freedom was a Good Thing. It was a Good Thing for everybody, everywhere
+and all the time. Count Erskyll knew it, because freedom was a Good
+Thing for him.
+
+He thought, suddenly, of an old tomcat belonging to a lady of his
+acquaintance at Paris-on-Baldur, a most affectionate cat, who insisted
+on catching mice and bringing them as presents to all his human friends.
+To this cat's mind, it was inconceivable that anybody would not be most
+happy to receive a nice fresh-killed mouse.
+
+"Too bad we have to set any of them free," Vann Shatrak said. "Too bad
+we can't just issue everybody new servile gorgets marked, _Personal
+Property of his Imperial Majesty_ and let it go at that. But I guess we
+can't."
+
+"Commodore Shatrak, you are joking," Erskyll began.
+
+"I hope I am," Shatrak replied grimly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The top landing-stage of the Citadel grew and filled the forward
+viewscreen of the ship's launch. It was only when he realized that the
+tiny specks were people, and the larger, birdseed-sized, specks
+vehicles, that the real size of the thing was apparent. Obray of
+Erskyll, beside him, had been silent. He had been looking at the
+crescent-shaped industrial city, like a servile gorget around
+Zeggensburg's neck.
+
+"The way they've been crowded together!" he said. "And the buildings; no
+space between. And all that smoke! They must be using fossil-fuel!"
+
+"It's probably too hard to process fissionables in large quantities,
+with what they have."
+
+"You were right, last evening. These people have deliberately halted
+progress, even retrogressed, rather than give up slavery."
+
+Halting progress, to say nothing of retrogression, was an unthinkable
+crime to him. Like freedom, progress was a Good Thing, anywhere, at all
+times, and without regard to direction.
+
+Colonel Ravney met them when they left the launch. The top landing-stage
+was swarming with Imperial troops.
+
+"Convocation Chamber's three stages down," he said. "About two thousand
+of them there now; been coming in all morning. We have everything set
+up." He laughed. "They tell me slaves are never permitted to enter it.
+Maybe, but they have the place bugged to the ceiling all around."
+
+"Bugged? What with?" Shatrak asked, and Erskyll was wanting to know what
+he meant. No doubt he thought Ravney was talking about things crawling
+out of the woodwork.
+
+"Screen pickups, radio pickups, wired microphones; you name it and it's
+there. I'll bet every slave in the Citadel knows everything that happens
+in there while it's happening."
+
+Shatrak wanted to know if he had done anything about them. Ravney shook
+his head.
+
+"If that's how they want to run a government, that's how they have a
+right to run it. Commander Douvrin put in a few of our own, a little
+better camouflaged than theirs."
+
+There were more troops on the third stage down. They formed a procession
+down a long empty hallway, a few scared-looking slaves peeping from
+doorways at them. There were more troops where the corridor ended in
+great double doors, emblazoned with a straight broad-sword diagonally
+across an eight-pointed star. Emblematology of planets conquered by the
+Space Vikings always included swords and stars. An officer gave a
+signal; the doors started to slide apart, and within, from a
+screen-speaker, came a fanfare of trumpets.
+
+At first, all he could see was the projection-screen, far ahead, and the
+tessellated aisle stretching toward it. The trumpets stopped, and they
+advanced, and then he saw the Lords-Master.
+
+They were massed, standing among benches on either side, and if anything
+Pyairr Ravney had understated their numbers. They all wore black,
+trimmed with gold; he wondered if the coincidence that these were also
+the Imperial colors might be useful. Queer garments, tightly fitted
+tunics at the top which became flowing robes below the waist, deeply
+scalloped at the edges. The sleeves were exaggeratedly wide; a knife or
+a pistol, and not necessarily a small one, could be concealed in every
+one. He was sure that thought had entered Vann Shatrak's mind. They were
+armed, not with dress-daggers, but with swords; long, straight
+cross-hilted broadswords. They were the first actual swords he had ever
+seen, except in museums or on the stage.
+
+There was a bench of gold and onyx at the front, where, normally the
+seven-man Presidium sat, and in front of it were thronelike seats for
+the Chiefs of Managements, equivalent to the Imperial Council of
+Ministers. Because of the projection screen that had been installed,
+they had all been moved to an improvised dais on the left. There was
+another dais on the right, under a canopy of black and gold velvet,
+emblazoned with the gold sun and superimposed black cogwheel of the
+Empire. There were three thrones, for himself, Shatrak, and Erskyll,
+and a number of lesser but still imposing chairs for their staffs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They took their seats. He slipped the earplug of his memophone into his
+left ear and pressed the stud in the middle of his Grand Star of the
+Order of Odin. The memophone began giving him the names of the Presidium
+and of the Chiefs of Managements. He wondered how many upper-slaves had
+been gunbutted to produce them.
+
+"Lords and Gentlemen," he said, after he had greeted them and introduced
+himself and the others, "I speak to you in the name of his Imperial
+Majesty, Rodrik III. His Majesty will now greet you in his own voice, by
+recording."
+
+He pressed a button on the arm of his chair. The screen lighted,
+flickered, and steadied, and the trumpets blared again. When the fanfare
+ended, a voice thundered:
+
+"_The Emperor speaks!_"
+
+Rodrik III compromised on the beard question with a small mustache. He
+wore the stern but kindly expression the best theatrical directors in
+Asgard had taught him; Public Face Number Three. He inclined his head
+slightly and stiffly, as a man wearing a seven-pound crown must.
+
+"We greet our subjects of Aditya to the fellowship of the Empire. We
+have long had good reports of you, and we are happy now to speak to you.
+Deserve well of us, and prosper under the Sun and Cogwheel."
+
+Another fanfare, as the image vanished. Before any of the Lords-Master
+could find voice, he was speaking to them:
+
+"Well, Lords and Gentlemen, you have been welcomed into the Empire by
+his Majesty. I know, there hasn't been a ship in or out of this system
+for five centuries, and I suppose you have a great many questions to ask
+about the Galactic Empire. Members of the Presidium and Chiefs of
+Managements may address me directly; others will please address the
+chairman."
+
+Olvir Nikkolon, the owner of Tchall Hozhet, was on his feet at once. He
+had a loose-lipped mouth and a not entirely straight nose and pale eyes
+that were never entirely still.
+
+"What I want to know is; why did you people have to come here to take
+our planet away from us? Isn't the rest of the Galaxy big enough for
+you?"
+
+"No, Lord Nikkolon. The Galaxy is not big enough for any competition of
+sovereignty. There must be one and only one completely sovereign power.
+The Terran Federation was once such a power. It failed, and vanished;
+you know what followed. Darkness and anarchy. We are clawing our way up
+out of that darkness. We will not fail. We will create a peaceful and
+unified Galaxy."
+
+He talked to them, about the collapse of the old Federation, about the
+interstellar wars, about the Neobarbarians, about the long night. He
+told them how the Empire had risen on a few planets five thousand
+light-years away, and how it had spread.
+
+"We will not repeat the mistakes of the Terran Federation. We will not
+attempt to force every planetary government into a common pattern, or
+dictate the ways in which they govern themselves. We will foster in
+every way peaceful trade and communication. But we will not again permit
+the plague of competing sovereignties, the condition under which war is
+inevitable. The first attempt to set up such a sovereignty in
+competition with the Empire will be crushed mercilessly, and no planet
+inhabited by any sapient race will be permitted to remain outside the
+Empire.
+
+"Lords and Gentlemen, permit me to show you a little of what we have
+already accomplished, in the past three hundred years."
+
+He pressed another button. The screen flickered, and the show started.
+It lasted for almost two hours; he used a handphone to interject
+comments and explanations. He showed them planet after planet--Marduk,
+where the Empire had begun, Baldur, Vishnu, Belphegor, Morglay, whence
+their ancestors had come, Amaterasu, Irminsul, Fafnir, finally Odin, the
+Imperial Planet. He showed towering cities swarming with aircars;
+spaceports where the huge globes of interstellar ships landed and lifted
+out; farms and industries; vast crowds at public celebrations;
+troop-reviews and naval bases and fleet-maneuvers; historical views of
+the battles that had created Imperial power.
+
+"That, Lords and Gentlemen, is what you have an opportunity to bring
+your planet into. If you accept, you will continue to rule Aditya under
+the Empire. If you refuse, you will only put us to the inconvenience of
+replacing you with a new planetary government, which will be annoying
+for us and, probably, fatal for you."
+
+Nobody said anything for a few minutes. Then Rovard Javasan, the Chief
+of Administration and the owner of the mountainous Khreggor Chmidd,
+rose.
+
+"Lords and Gentlemen, we cannot resist anything like this," he said. "We
+cannot even resist the force they have here; that was tried yesterday,
+and you all saw what happened. Now, Prince Trevannion; just to what
+extent will the Mastership retain its sovereignty under the Empire?"
+
+"To practically the same extent as at present. You will, of course,
+acknowledge the Emperor as your supreme ruler, and will govern subject
+to the Imperial Constitution. Have you any colonies on any of the other
+planets of this system?"
+
+"We had a shipyard and docks on the inner moon, and we had mines on the
+fourth planet of this system, but it is almost airless and the colony
+was limited to a couple of dome-cities. Both were abandoned years ago."
+
+"Both will be reopened before long, I daresay. We'd better make the
+limits of your sovereignty the orbit of the outer planet of this system.
+You may have your own normal-space ships, but the Empire will control
+all hyperdrive craft, and all nuclear weapons. I take it you are the
+sole government on this planet? Then no other will be permitted to
+compete with you."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Well, what are they taking away from us, then?" somebody in the rear
+asked.
+
+"I assume that you are agreed to accept the sovereignty of his Imperial
+Majesty? Good. As a matter of form, Lord Nikkolon, will you take a vote?
+His Imperial Majesty would be most gratified if it were unanimous."
+
+Somebody insisted that the question would have to be debated, which
+meant that everybody would have to make a speech, all two thousand of
+them. He informed them that there was nothing to debate; they were
+confronted with an accomplished fact which they must accept. So Nikkolon
+made a speech, telling them at what a great moment in Adityan history
+they stood, and concluded by saying:
+
+"I take it that it is the unanimous will of this Convocation that the
+sovereignty of the Galactic Emperor be acknowledged, and that we, the
+'Mastership of Aditya' do here proclaim our loyal allegiance to his
+Imperial Majesty, Rodrik the Third. Any dissent? Then it is ordered so
+recorded."
+
+Then he had to make another speech, to inform the representatives of his
+new sovereign of the fact. Prince Trevannion, in the name of the
+Emperor, delivered the well-worn words of welcome, and Lanze Degbrend
+got the coronet out of the black velvet bag under his arm and the
+Imperial Proconsul, Obray, Count Erskyll, was crowned. Erskyll's
+charge-d'affaires, Sharll Ernanday, produced the scroll of the Imperial
+Constitution, and Erskyll began to read.
+
+Section One: The universality of the Empire. The absolute powers of the
+Emperor. The rules of succession. The Emperor also to be Planetary King
+of Odin.
+
+Section Two: Every planetary government to be sovereign in its own
+internal affairs.... Only one sovereign government upon any planet, or
+within normal-space travel distance.... All hyperspace ships, and all
+nuclear weapons.... No planetary government shall make war ... enter
+into any alliance ... tax, regulate or restrain interstellar trade or
+communication.... Every sapient being shall be equally protected....
+
+Then he came to Article Six. He cleared his throat, raised his voice,
+and read:
+
+"_There shall be no chattel-slavery or serfdom anywhere in the Empire;
+no sapient being, of any race whatsoever, shall be the property of any
+being but himself._"
+
+The Convocation Chamber was silent, like a bomb with a defective fuse,
+for all of thirty seconds. Then it blew up with a roar. Out of the
+corner of his eye, he saw the doors slide apart and an airjeep,
+bristling with machine guns, float in and rise to the ceiling. The first
+inarticulate roar was followed by a babel of voices, like a tropical
+cloudburst on a prefab hut. Olvir Nikkolon's mouth was working as he
+shouted unheard.
+
+He pressed another of the row of buttons on the arm of his chair. Out of
+the screen-speaker a voice, as loud, by actual sound-meter test, as an
+anti-vehicle gun, thundered:
+
+"SILENCE!"
+
+Into the shocked stillness which it produced, he spoke, like a
+schoolmaster who has returned to find his room in an uproar:
+
+"Lord Nikkolon; what is this nonsense? You are Chairman of the
+Presidium; is this how you keep order here? What is this, a planetary
+parliament or a spaceport saloon?"
+
+"You tricked us!" Nikkolon accused. "You didn't tell us about that
+article when we voted. Why, our whole society is based on slavery!"
+
+Other voices joined in:
+
+"That's all right for you people, you have robots...."
+
+"Maybe you don't know it, but there are twenty million slaves on this
+planet...."
+
+"Look, you can't free slaves! That's ridiculous. A slave's a _slave_!"
+
+"Who'll do the work? And who would they belong to? They'd have to belong
+to somebody!"
+
+"What I want to know," Rovard Javasan made himself heard, is, "_how_ are
+you going to free them?"
+
+There was an ancient word, originating in one of the lost languages of
+Pre-Atomic Terra--_sixtifor_. It meant, the basic, fundamental,
+question. Rovard Javasan, he suspected, had just asked the sixtifor. Of
+course, Obray, Count Erskyll, Planetary Proconsul of Aditya, didn't
+realize that. He didn't even know what Javasan meant. Just free them.
+Commodore Vann Shatrak couldn't see much of a problem, either. He would
+have answered, Just free them, and then shoot down the first two or
+three thousand who took it seriously. Jurgen, Prince Trevannion, had no
+intention whatever of attempting to answer the sixtifor.
+
+"My dear Lord Javasan, that is the problem of the Adityan Mastership.
+They are your slaves; we have neither the intention nor the right to
+free them. But let me remind you that slavery is specifically prohibited
+by the Imperial Constitution; if you do not abolish it immediately, the
+Empire will be forced to intervene. I believe, toward the last of those
+audio-visuals, you saw some examples of Imperial intervention."
+
+They had. A few looked apprehensively at the ceiling, as though
+expecting the hellburners and planet-busters and nega-matter-bombs at
+any moment. Then one of the members among the benches rose.
+
+"We don't know how we are going to do it, Prince Trevannion," he said.
+"We will do it, since this is the Empire law, but you will have to tell
+us how."
+
+"Well, the first thing will have to be an Act of Convocation, outlawing
+the ownership of one being by another. Set some definite date on which
+the slaves must all be freed; that need not be too immediate. Then, I
+would suggest that you set up some agency to handle all the details.
+And, as soon as you have enacted the abolition of slavery, which should
+be this afternoon, appoint a committee, say a dozen of you, to confer
+with Count Erskyll and myself. Say you have your committee aboard the
+_Empress Eulalie_ in six hours. We'll have transportation arranged by
+then. And let me point out, I hope for the last time, that we discuss
+matters directly, without intermediaries. We don't want any more slaves,
+pardon, freedmen, coming aboard to talk for you, as happened yesterday."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Obray, Count Erskyll, was unhappy about it. He did not think that the
+Lords-Master were to be trusted to abolish slavery; he said so, on the
+launch, returning to the ship. Jurgen, Prince Trevannion was inclined to
+agree. He doubted if any of the Lords-Master he had seen were to be
+trusted, unassisted, to fix a broken mouse-trap.
+
+Line-Commodore Vann Shatrak was also worried. He was wondering how long
+it would take for Pyairr Ravney to make useful troops out of the
+newly-surrendered slave soldiers, and where he was going to find
+contragravity to shift them expeditiously from trouble-spot to
+trouble-spot. Erskyll thought he was anticipating resistance on the part
+of the Masters, and for once he approved the use of force. Ordinarily,
+force was a Bad Thing, but this was a Good Cause, which justified any
+means.
+
+They entertained the committee from the Convocation for dinner, that
+evening. They came aboard stiffly hostile--most understandably so, under
+the circumstances--and Prince Trevannion exerted all his copious charm
+to thaw them out, beginning with the pre-dinner cocktails and continuing
+through the meal. By the time they retired for coffee and brandy to the
+parlor where the conference was to be held, the Lords-ex-Masters were
+almost friendly.
+
+"We've enacted the Emancipation Act," Olvir Nikkolon, who was ex officio
+chairman of the committee, reported. "Every slave on the planet must be
+free before the opening of the next Midyear Feasts."
+
+"And when will that be?"
+
+Aditya, he knew, had a three hundred and fifty-eight day year; even if
+the Midyear Feasts were just past, they were giving themselves very
+little time. In about a hundred and fifty days, Nikkolon said.
+
+"Good heavens!" Erskyll began, indignantly.
+
+"I should say so, myself," he put in, cutting off anything else the new
+Proconsul might have said. "You gentlemen are allowing yourselves
+dangerously little time. A hundred and fifty days will pass quite
+rapidly, and you have twenty million slaves to deal with. If you start
+at this moment and work continuously, you'll have a little under a
+second apiece for each slave."
+
+The Lords-Master looked dismayed. So, he was happy to observe, did Count
+Erskyll.
+
+"I assume you have some system of slave registration?" he continued.
+
+That was safe. They had a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies tend to have
+registrations of practically everything.
+
+"Oh, yes, of course," Rovard Javasan assured him. "That's your
+Management, isn't it, Sesar; Servile Affairs?"
+
+"Yes, we have complete data on every slave on the planet," Sesar
+Martwynn, the Chief of Servile Management, said. "Of course, I'd have to
+ask Zhorzh about the details...."
+
+Zhorzh was Zhorzh Khouzhik, Martwynn's chief-slave in office.
+
+"At least, he was my chief-slave; now you people have taken him away
+from me. I don't know what I'm going to do without him. For that matter,
+I don't know what poor Zhorzh will do, either."
+
+"Have you gentlemen informed your chief-slaves that they are free, yet?"
+
+Nikkolon and Javasan looked at each other. Sesar Martwynn laughed.
+
+"They know," Javasan said. "I must say they are much disturbed."
+
+"Well, reassure them, as soon as you're back at the Citadel," he told
+them. "Tell them that while they are now free, they need not leave you
+unless they so desire; that you will provide for them as before."
+
+"You mean, we can keep our chief-slaves?" somebody cried.
+
+"Yes, of course--chief-freedmen, you'll have to call them, now. You'll
+have to pay them a salary...."
+
+"You mean, give them money?" Ranal Valdry, the Lord Provost-Marshal
+demanded, incredulously. "Pay our own slaves?"
+
+"You idiot," somebody told him, "they aren't our slaves any more. That's
+the whole point of this discussion."
+
+"But ... but how can we pay slaves?" one of the committeemen-at-large
+asked. "Freedmen, I mean?"
+
+"With money. You do have money, haven't you?"
+
+"Of course we have. What do you think we are, savages?"
+
+"What kind of money?"
+
+Why, money; what did he think? The unit was the star-piece, the stelly.
+When he asked to see some of it, they were indignant. Nobody carried
+money; wasn't Masterly. A Master never even touched the stuff; that was
+what slaves were for. He wanted to know how it was secured, and they
+didn't know what he meant, and when he tried to explain their
+incomprehension deepened. It seemed that the Mastership issued money to
+finance itself, and individual Masters issued money on their personal
+credit, and it was handled through the Mastership Banks.
+
+"That's Fedrig Daffysan's Management; he isn't here," Rovard Javasan
+said. "I can't explain it, myself."
+
+And without his chief-slave, Fedrig Daffysan probably would not be able
+to, either.
+
+"Yes, gentlemen. I understand. You have money. Now, the first thing you
+will have to do is furnish us with a complete list of all the
+slave-owners on the planet, and a list of all the slaves held by each.
+This will be sent back to Odin, and will be the basis for the
+compensation to be paid for the destruction of your property-rights in
+these slaves. How much is a slave worth, by the way?"
+
+Nobody knew. Slaves were never sold; it wasn't Masterly to sell one's
+slaves. It wasn't even heard of.
+
+"Well, we'll arrive at some valuation. Now, as soon as you get back to
+the Citadel, talk at once to your former chief-slaves, and their
+immediate subordinates, and explain the situation to them. This can be
+passed down through administrative freedmen to the workers; you must see
+to it that it is clearly understood, at all levels, that as long as the
+freedmen remain at their work they will be provided for and paid, but
+that if they quit your service they will receive nothing. Do you think
+you can do that?"
+
+"You mean, give them everything we've been giving them now, and then pay
+them money?" Ranal Valdry almost howled.
+
+"Oh, no. You pay them a fixed wage. You charge them for everything you
+give them, and deduct that from their wages. It will mean considerable
+extra bookkeeping, but outside of that I believe you'll find that things
+will go along much as they always did."
+
+The Masters had begun to relax, and by the time he was finished all of
+them were smiling in relief. Count Erskyll, on the other hand, was
+almost writhing in his chair. It must be horrible to be a brilliant
+young Proconsul of liberal tendencies and to have to sit mute while a
+cynical old Ministerial Secretary, vastly one's superior in the
+Imperial Establishment and a distant cousin of the Emperor to boot,
+calmly bartered away the sacred liberties of twenty million people.
+
+"But would that be legal, under the Imperial Constitution?" Olvir
+Nikkolon asked.
+
+"I shouldn't have suggested it if it hadn't been. The Constitution only
+forbids physical ownership of one sapient being by another; it
+emphatically does not guarantee anyone an unearned livelihood."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Convocation committee returned to Zeggensburg to start preparing the
+servile population for freedom, or reasonable facsimile. The
+chief-slaves would take care of that; each one seemed to have a list of
+other chief-slaves, and the word would spread from them on an
+each-one-call-five system. The public announcement would be postponed
+until the word could be passed out to the upper servile levels. A
+meeting with the chief-slaves in office of the various Managements was
+scheduled for the next afternoon.
+
+Count Erskyll chatted with forced affability while the departing
+committeemen were being seen to the launch that would take them down.
+When the airlock closed behind them, he drew Prince Trevannion aside out
+of earshot of their subordinates.
+
+"You know what you're doing?" he raged, in a hoarse whisper. "You're
+simply substituting peonage for outright slavery!"
+
+"I'd call that something of a step." He motioned Erskyll into one of the
+small hall-cars, climbed in beside him, and lifted it, starting toward
+the living-area. "The Convocation has acknowledged the principle that
+sapient beings should not be property. That's a great deal, for one
+day."
+
+"But the people will remain in servitude, you know that. The Masters
+will keep them in debt, and they'll be treated just as brutally...."
+
+"Oh, there will be abuses; that's to be expected. This Freedmen's
+Management, nee Servile Management, will have to take care of that.
+Better make a memo to talk with this chief-freedman of Martwynn's,
+what's his name? Zhorzh Khouzhik; that's right, let Zhorzh do it.
+Employment Practices Code, investigation agency, enforcement. If he
+can't do the job, that's not our fault. The Empire does not guarantee
+every planet an honest, intelligent and efficient government; just a
+single one."
+
+"But...."
+
+"It will take two or three generations. At first, the freedmen will be
+exploited just as they always have been, but in time there will be
+protests, and disorders, and each time, there will be some small
+improvement. A society must evolve, Obray. Let these people earn their
+freedom. Then they will be worthy of it."
+
+"They should have their freedom now."
+
+"This present generation? What do you think freedom means to them? _We
+don't have to work, any more._ So down tools and let everything stop at
+once. _We can do anything we want to._ Let's kill the overseer. And:
+_Anything that belongs to the Masters belongs to us; we're Masters too,
+now._ No, I think it's better, for the present, to tell them that this
+freedom business is just a lot of Masterly funny-talk, and that things
+aren't really being changed at all. It will effect a considerable saving
+of his Imperial Majesty's ammunition, for one thing."
+
+He dropped Erskyll at his apartment and sent the hall-car back from his
+own. Lanze Degbrend was waiting for him when he entered.
+
+"Ravney's having trouble. That is the word he used," Degbrend said. In
+Pyairr Ravney's lexicon, trouble meant shooting. "The news of the
+Emancipation Act is leaking all over the place. Some of the troops in
+the north who haven't been disarmed yet are mutinying, and there are
+slave insurrections in a number of places."
+
+"They think the Masters have forsaken them, and it's every slave for
+himself." He hadn't expected that to start so soon. "The announcement
+had better go out as quickly as possible. And I think we're going to
+have some trouble. You have information-taps into Count Erskyll's
+numerous staff? Use them as much as you can."
+
+"You think he's going to try to sabotage this employment programme of
+yours, sir?"
+
+"Oh, he won't think of it in those terms. He'll be preventing me from
+sabotaging the Emancipation. He doesn't want to wait three generations;
+he wants to free them at once. Everything has to be at once for
+six-month-old puppies, six-year-old children, and reformers of any age."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The announcement did not go out until nearly noon the next day. In terms
+comprehensible to any low-grade submoron, it was emphasized that all
+this meant was that slaves should henceforth be called freedmen, that
+they could have money just like Lords-Master, and that if they worked
+faithfully and obeyed orders they would be given everything they were
+now receiving. Ravney had been shuttling troops about, dealing with the
+sporadic outbreaks of disorder here and there: many of these had been
+put down, and the rest died out after the telecast explaining the
+situation.
+
+In addition, some of Commander Douvrin's intelligence people had
+discovered that the only source of fissionables and radioactives for the
+planet was a complex of uranite mines, separation plants, refineries and
+reaction-plants on the smaller of Aditya's two continents, Austragonia.
+In spite of other urgent calls on his resources, Ravney landed troops to
+seize these, and a party of engineers followed them down from the
+_Empress Eulalie_ to make an inspection.
+
+At lunch, Count Erskyll was slightly less intransigent on the subject of
+the wage-employment proposals. No doubt some of his advisors had been
+telling him what would happen if any appreciable number of Aditya's
+labor-force stopped work suddenly, and the wave of uprisings that had
+broken out before any public announcement had been made puzzled him. He
+was also concerned about finding a suitable building for a proconsular
+palace; the business of the Empire on Aditya could not be conducted long
+from shipboard.
+
+Going down to the Citadel that afternoon, they found the chief-freedmen
+of the non-functional Chiefs of Management assembled in a large room on
+the fifth level down. There was a cluster of big tables and
+communication-screens and wired telephones in the middle, with smaller
+tables around them, at which freedmen in variously colored gowns sat.
+The ones at the central tables, a dozen and a half, all wore
+chief-slaves' white gowns.
+
+Trevannion and Erskyll and Patrique Morvill and Lanze Degbrend joined
+these; subordinates guided the rest of the party--a couple of Ravney's
+officers and Erskyll's numerous staff of advisors and specialists--to
+distribute themselves with their opposite numbers in the Mastership.
+Everybody on the Adityan side seemed uneasy with these strange
+hermaphrodite creatures who were neither slaves nor Lords-Master.
+
+"Well, gentlemen," Count Erskyll began, "I suppose you have been
+informed by your former Lords-Master of how relations between them and
+you will be in the future?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Lord Proconsul," Khreggor Chmidd replied happily. "Everything
+will be just as before, except that the Lords-Master will be called
+Lords-Employer, and the slaves will be called freedmen, and any time
+they want to starve to death, they can leave their Employers if they
+wish."
+
+Count Erskyll frowned. That wasn't just exactly what he had hoped
+Emancipation would mean to these people.
+
+"Nobody seems to understand about this money thing, though," Zhorzh
+Khouzhik, Sesar Martwynn's chief-freedman said. "My Lord-Master--" He
+slapped himself across the mouth and said, "Lord-Employer!" five times,
+rapidly. "My Lord-_Employer_ tried to explain it to me, but I don't
+think he understands very clearly, himself."
+
+"None of them do."
+
+The speaker was a small man with pale eyes and a mouth like a rat-trap;
+Yakoop Zhannar, chief-freedman to Ranal Valdry, the Provost-Marshal.
+
+"Its really your idea, Prince Trevannion," Erskyll said. "Perhaps you
+can explain it."
+
+"Oh, it's very simple. You see...."
+
+At least, it had seemed simple when he started. Labor was a commodity,
+which the worker sold and the employer purchased; a "fair wage" was one
+which enabled both to operate at a profit. Everybody knew that--except
+here on Aditya. On Aditya, a slave worked because he was a slave, and a
+Master provided for him because he was a Master, and that was all there
+was to it. But now, it seemed, there weren't any more Masters, and there
+weren't any more slaves.
+
+"That's exactly it," he replied, when somebody said as much. "So now, if
+the slaves, I mean, freedmen, want to eat, they have to work to earn
+money to buy food, and if the Employers want work done, they have to pay
+people to do it."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Then why go to all the trouble about the money?" That was an elderly
+chief-freedman, Mykhyl Eschkhaffar, whose Lord-Employer, Oraze Borztall,
+was Manager of Public Works. "Before your ships came, the slaves worked
+for the Masters, and the Masters took care of the slaves, and everybody
+was content. Why not leave it like that?"
+
+"Because the Galactic Emperor, who is the Lord-Master of these people,
+says that there must be no more slaves. Don't ask me why," Tchall Hozhet
+snapped at him. "I don't know, either. But they are here with ships and
+guns and soldiers; what can we do?"
+
+"That's very close to it," he admitted. "But there is one thing you
+haven't considered. A slave only gets what his master gives him. But a
+free worker for pay gets money which he can spend for whatever he wants,
+and he can save money, and if he finds that he can make more money
+working for somebody else, he can quit his employer and get a better
+job."
+
+"We hadn't thought of that," Khreggor Chmidd said. "A slave, even a
+chief-slave, was never allowed to have money of his own, and if he got
+hold of any, he couldn't spend it. But now...." A glorious vista seemed
+to open in front of him. "And he can accumulate money. I don't suppose a
+common worker could, but an upper slave.... Especially a
+chief-slave...." He slapped his mouth, and said, "Freedman!" five times.
+
+"Yes, Khreggor." That was Ridgerd Schferts (Fedrig Daffysan; Fiscal
+Management). "I am sure we could all make quite a lot of money, now that
+we are freedmen."
+
+Some of them were briefly puzzled; gradually, comprehension dawned.
+Obray, Count Erskyll, looked distressed; he seemed to be hoping, vainly,
+that they weren't thinking of what he suspected they were.
+
+"How about the Mastership freedmen?" another asked. "We, here, will be
+paid by our Lords-Mas- ... Lords-Employer. But everybody from the green
+robes down were provided for by the Mastership. Who will pay them, now?"
+
+"Why, the Mastership, of course," Ridgerd Schferts said. "My
+Management--my Lord-Employer's, I mean--will issue the money to pay
+them."
+
+"You may need a new printing-press," Lanze Degbrend said. "And an awful
+lot of paper."
+
+"This planet will need currency acceptable in interstellar trade,"
+Erskyll said.
+
+Everybody looked blankly at him. He changed the subject:
+
+"Mr. Chmidd, could you or Mr. Hozhet tell me what kind of a constitution
+the Mastership has?"
+
+"You mean, like the paper you read in the Convocation?" Hozhet asked.
+"Oh, there is nothing at all like that. The former Lords-Master simply
+ruled."
+
+No. They reigned. This servile _tammanihal_--another ancient Terran
+word, of uncertain origin--ruled.
+
+"Well, how is the Mastership organized, then?" Erskyll persisted. "How
+did the Lord Nikkolon get to be Chairman of the Presidium, and the Lord
+Javasan to be Chief of Administration?"
+
+That was very simple. The Convocation, consisting of the heads of all
+the Masterly families, actually small clans, numbered about twenty-five
+hundred. They elected the seven members of the Presidium, who drew lots
+for the Chairmanship. They served for life. Vacancies were filled by
+election on nomination of the surviving members. The Presidium appointed
+the Chiefs of Managements, who also served for life.
+
+At least, it had stability. It was self-perpetuating.
+
+"Does the Convocation make the laws?" Erskyll asked.
+
+Hozhet was perplexed. "_Make_ laws, Lord Proconsul? Oh, no. We have
+laws."
+
+There were planets, here and there through the Empire, where an attitude
+like that would have been distinctly beneficial; planets with elective
+parliaments, every member of which felt himself obligated to get as many
+laws enacted during his term of office as possible.
+
+"But this is dreadful; you _must_ have a constitution!" Obray of Erskyll
+was shocked. "We will have to get one drawn up and adopted."
+
+"We don't know anything about that at all," Khreggor Chmidd admitted.
+"This is something new. You will have to help us."
+
+"I certainly will, Mr. Chmidd. Suppose you form a committee--yourself,
+and Mr. Hozhet, and three or four others; select them among
+yourselves--and we can get together and talk over what will be needed.
+And another thing. We'll have to stop calling this the Mastership. There
+are no more Masters."
+
+"The Employership?" Lanze Degbrend dead-panned.
+
+Erskyll looked at him angrily. "This is something," he told the
+chief-freedmen, "that should not belong to the Employers alone. It
+should belong to everybody. Let us call it the Commonwealth. That means
+something everybody owns in common."
+
+"Something everybody owns, nobody owns," Mykhyl Eschkhaffar objected.
+
+"Oh, no, Mykhyl; it will belong to everybody," Khreggor Chmidd told him
+earnestly. "But somebody will have to take care of it for everybody.
+That," he added complacently, "will be you and me and the rest of us
+here."
+
+"I believe," Yakoop Zhannar said, almost smiling, "that this freedom is
+going to be a wonderful thing. For us."
+
+"I don't like it!" Mykhyl Eschkhaffar said stubbornly. "Too many new
+things, and too much changing names. We have to call slaves freedmen; we
+have to call Lords Master Lords-Employer; we have to call the Management
+of Servile Affairs the Management for Freedmen. Now we have to call the
+Mastership this new name, Commonwealth. And all these new things, for
+which we have no routine procedures and no directives. I wish these
+people had never heard of this planet."
+
+"That makes at least two of us," Patrique Morvill said, _sotto voce_.
+
+"Well, the planetary constitution can wait just a bit," Prince
+Trevannion suggested. "We have a great many items on the agenda which
+must be taken care of immediately. For instance, there's this thing
+about finding a proconsular palace...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A surprising amount of work had been done at the small tables where
+Erskyll's staff of political and economic and technological experts had
+been conferring with the subordinate upper-freedmen. It began coming out
+during the pre-dinner cocktails aboard the _Empress Eulalie_, continued
+through the meal, and was fully detailed during the formal debriefing
+session afterward.
+
+Finding a suitable building for the Proconsular Palace would present
+difficulties. Real estate was not sold on Aditya, any more than slaves
+were. It was not only un-Masterly but illegal; estates were all entailed
+and the inalienable property of Masterly families. What was wanted was
+one of the isolated residential towers in Zeggensburg, far enough from
+the Citadel to avoid an appearance of too close supervision. The last
+thing anybody wanted was to establish the Proconsul in the Citadel
+itself. The Management of Business of the Mastership, however, had
+promised to do something about it. That would mean, no doubt, that the
+_Empress Eulalie_ would be hanging over Zeggensburg, serving as
+Proconsular Palace, for the next year or so.
+
+The Servile Management, rechristened Freedmen's Management, would
+undertake to safeguard the rights of the newly emancipated slaves. There
+would be an Employment Code--Count Erskyll was invited to draw that
+up--and a force of investigators, and an enforcement agency, under
+Zhorzh Khouzhik.
+
+One of Commander Douvrin's men, who had been at the Austragonia
+nuclear-industries establishment, was present and reported:
+
+"Great Ghu, you ought to see that place! They've people working in
+places I wouldn't send an unshielded robot, and the hospital there is
+bulging with radiation-sickness cases. The equipment must have been
+brought here by the Space Vikings. What's left of it is the damnedest
+mess of goldbergery I ever saw. The whole thing ought to be shut down
+and completely rebuilt."
+
+Erskyll wanted to know who owned it. The Mastership, he was told.
+
+"That's right," one of his economics men agreed. "Management of Public
+Works." That would be Mykhyl Eschkhaffar, who had so bitterly objected
+to the new nomenclature. "If anybody needs fissionables for a
+power-reactor or radioactives for nuclear-electric conversion, his chief
+business slave gets what's needed. Furthermore, doesn't even have to
+sign for it."
+
+"Don't they sell it for revenue?"
+
+"Nifflheim, no! This government doesn't need revenue. This government
+supports itself by counterfeiting. When the Mastership needs money, they
+just have Ridgerd Schferts print up another batch. Like everybody else."
+
+"Then the money simply isn't worth anything!" Erskyll was horrified,
+which was rapidly becoming his normal state.
+
+"Who cares about money, Obray," he said. "Didn't you hear them, last
+evening? It's un-Masterly to bother about things like money. Of course,
+everybody owes everybody for everything, but it's all in the family."
+
+"Well, something will have to be done about that!"
+
+That was at least the tenth time he had said that, this evening.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It came practically as a thunderbolt when Khreggor Chmidd screened the
+ship the next afternoon to report that a Proconsular Palace had been
+found, and would be ready for occupancy in a day or so. The
+chief-freedmen of the Management of Business of the Mastership and of
+the Lord Chief Justiciar had found one, the Elegry Palace, which had
+been unoccupied except for what he described as a small caretaking staff
+for years, while two Masterly families disputed inheritance rights and
+slave lawyers quibbled endlessly before a slave judge. The chief
+freedman of the Lord Chief Justiciar had simply summoned judge and
+lawyers into his office and ordered them to settle the suit at once.
+The settlement had consisted of paying both litigants the full value of
+the building; this came to fifty million stellies apiece. Arbitrarily,
+the stelly was assigned a value in Imperial crowns of a hundred for one.
+A million crowns was about what the building would be worth, with
+contents, on Odin. It would be paid for with a draft on the Imperial
+Exchequer.
+
+"Well, you have some hard currency on the planet, now," he told Count
+Erskyll, while they were having a pre-dinner drink together that
+evening. "I hope it doesn't touch off an inflation, if the term is
+permissible when applied to Adityan currency."
+
+Erskyll snapped his fingers. "Yes! And there's the money we've been
+spending for supplies. And when we start compensation payments....
+Excuse me for a moment."
+
+He dashed off, his drink in his hand. After a long interval, he was
+back, carrying a fresh one he had gotten from a bartending robot en
+route.
+
+"Well, that's taken care of," he said. "My fiscal man's getting in touch
+with Ridgerd Schferts; the Elegry heirs will be paid in Adityan
+stellies, and the Imperial crowns will be held in the Commonwealth Bank,
+or, better, banked in Asgard, to give Aditya some off-planet credit. And
+we'll do the same with our other expenditures, and with the
+slave-compensation. This is going to be wonderful; this planet needs
+everything in the way of industrial equipment; this is how they're going
+to get it."
+
+"But, Obray; the compensations are owing to the individual Masters. They
+should be paid in crowns. You know as well as I do that this
+hundred-for-one rate is purely a local fiction. On the interstellar
+exchange, these stellies have a crown value of precisely
+zero-point-zero."
+
+"You know what would happen if these ci-devant Masters got hold of
+Imperial crowns," Erskyll said. "They'd only squander them back again
+for useless imported luxuries. This planet needs a complete
+modernization, and this is the only way the money to pay for it can be
+gotten." He was gesturing excitedly with the almost-full glass in his
+hand; Prince Trevannion stepped back out of the way of the splash he
+anticipated. "I have no sympathy for these ci-devant Masters. They own
+every stick and stone and pinch of dust on this planet, as it is. Is
+that fair?"
+
+"Possibly not. But neither is what you're proposing to do."
+
+Obray, Count Erskyll, couldn't see that. He was proposing to secure the
+Greatest Good for the Greatest Number, and to Nifflheim with any
+minorities who happened to be in the way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Navy took over the Elegry Palace the next morning, ran up the
+Imperial Sun and Cogwheel flag, and began transmitting views of its
+interior up to the _Empress Eulalie_. It was considerably smaller than
+the Imperial Palace at Asgard on Odin, but room for room the furnishings
+were rather more ornate and expensive. By the next afternoon, the
+counter-espionage team that had gone down reported the Masterly living
+quarters clear of pickups, microphones, and other apparatus of servile
+snooping, of which they had found many. The _Canopus_ was recalled from
+her station over the northern end of the continent and began sending
+down the proconsulate furnishings stowed aboard, including several
+hundred domestic robots.
+
+The skeleton caretaking staff Chmidd had mentioned proved to number five
+hundred.
+
+"What are we going to do about them?" Erskyll wanted to know. "There's a
+limit to the upkeep allowance for a proconsulate, and we can't pay five
+hundred useless servants. The chief-freedman, and about a dozen
+assistants, and a few to operate the robots, when we train them, but
+five hundred...!"
+
+"Let Zhorzh do it," Prince Trevannion suggested. "Isn't that what this
+Freedmen's Management is for; to find employment for emancipated slaves?
+Just emancipate them and turn them over to Khouzhik."
+
+Khouzhik promptly placed all of them on the payroll of his Management.
+Khouzhik was having his hands full. He had all his top mathematical
+experts, some of whom even understood the use of the slide-rule, trying
+to work up a scale of wages. Erskyll loaned him a few of his staff. None
+of the ideas any of them developed proved workable. Khouzhik had also
+organized a corps of investigators, and he was beginning to annex the
+private guard-companies of the Lords-ex-Master, whom he was organizing
+into a police force.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The nuclear works on Austragonia were closed down. Mykhyl Eschkhaffar
+ordered a programme of rationing and priorities to conserve the stock of
+plutonium and radioactive isotopes on hand, and he decided that
+henceforth nuclear-energy materials would be sold instead of furnished
+freely. He simply found out what the market quotations on Odin were,
+translated that into stellies, and adopted it. This was just a base
+price; there would have to be bribes for priority allocations, rakeoffs
+for the under-freedmen, and graft for the business-freedmen of the
+Lords-ex-Masters who bought the stuff. The latter were completely
+unconcerned; none of them even knew about it.
+
+The Convocation adjourned until the next regular session, at the Midyear
+Feasts, an eight-day intercalary period which permitted dividing the
+358-day Adityan year into ten months of thirty-five days each. Count
+Erskyll was satisfied to see them go. He was working on a constitution
+for the Commonwealth of Aditya, and was making very little progress with
+it.
+
+"It's one of these elaborate check-and-balance things," Lanze Degbrend
+reported. "To begin with, it was the constitution of Aton, with an
+elective president substituted for a hereditary king. Of course, there
+are a lot of added gadgets; Atonian Radical Democrat stuff. Chmidd and
+Hozhet and the other chief-slaves don't like it, either."
+
+"Slap your mouth and say, 'Freedmen,' five times."
+
+"Nuts," his subordinate retorted insubordinately. "I know a slave when I
+see one. A slave is a slave, with or without a gorget; if he doesn't
+wear it around his neck, he has it tattooed on his soul. It takes at
+least three generations to rub it off."
+
+"I could wish that Count Erskyll...." he began. "What else is our
+Proconsul doing?"
+
+"Well, I'm afraid he's trying to set up some kind of a scheme for the
+complete nationalization of all farms, factories, transport facilities,
+and other means of production and distribution," Degbrend said.
+
+"He's not going to try to do that himself, is he?" He was, he
+discovered, speaking sharply, and modified his tone. "He won't do it
+with Imperial authority, or with Imperial troops. Not as long as I'm
+here. And when we go back to Odin, I'll see to it that Vann Shatrak
+understands that."
+
+"Oh, no. The Commonwealth of Aditya will do that," Degbrend said.
+"Chmidd and Hozhet and Yakoop Zhannar and Zhorzh Khouzhik and the rest
+of them, that is. He wants it done legitimately and legally. That means,
+he'll have to wait till the Midyear Feasts, when the Convocation
+assembles, and he can get his constitution enacted. If he can get it
+written by then."
+
+Vann Shatrak sent two of the destroyers off to explore the moons of
+Aditya, of which there were two. The outer moon, Aditya-_Ba'_, was an
+irregular chunk of rock fifty miles in diameter, barely visible to the
+naked eye. The inner, Aditya-_Alif_, however, was an eight-hundred-mile
+sphere; it had once been the planetary ship-station and shipyard-base.
+It seemed to have been abandoned when the Adityan technology and economy
+had begun sagging under the weight of the slave system. Most of the
+installations remained, badly run down but repairable. Shatrak
+transferred as many of his technicians as he could spare to the _Mizar_
+and sent her to recondition the shipyard and render the underground city
+inhabitable again so that the satellite could be used as a base for his
+ships. He decided, then, to send the _Irma_ back to Odin with reports of
+the annexation of Aditya, a proposal that Aditya-_Alif_ be made a
+permanent Imperial naval-base, and a request for more troops.
+
+Prince Trevannion taped up his own reports, describing the general
+situation on the newly annexed planet, and doing nothing to minimize the
+problems facing its Proconsul.
+
+"Count Erskyll" he finished, "is doing the best possible under
+circumstances from which I myself would feel inclined to shrink. If not
+carried to excess, perhaps youthful idealism is not without value in
+Empire statecraft. I understand that Commodore Shatrak, who is also
+coping with some very trying problems, is requesting troop
+reenforcements. I believe this request amply justified, and would
+recommend that they be gotten here as speedily as possible.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I understand that he is also recommending a permanent naval base on the
+larger of this planet's two satellites. This I also endorse
+unreservedly. It would have a most salutary effect on the local
+government. I would further recommend that Commodore Shatrak be placed
+in command of it, with suitable promotion, which he has long ago
+earned."
+
+Erskyll was surprised that he was not himself returning to Odin on the
+destroyer, and evidently disturbed. He mentioned it during pre-dinner
+cocktails that evening.
+
+"I know, my own work here is finished; was the moment the Convocation
+voted acknowledgment of Imperial rule." Prince Trevannion replied. "I
+would like to stay on for the Midyear Feasts, though. The Convocation
+will vote on your constitution, and I would like to be able to report
+their action to the Prime Minister. How is it progressing, by the way?"
+
+"Well, we have a rough draft. I don't care much for it, myself, but
+Citizen Hozhet and Citizen Chmidd and Citizen Zhannar and the others are
+most enthusiastic, and, after all, they are the ones who will have to
+operate under it."
+
+The Masterly estates would be the representative units; from each, the
+freedmen would elect representatives to regional elective councils, and
+these in turn would elect representatives to a central electoral council
+which would elect a Supreme People's Legislative Council. This would
+not only function as the legislative body, but would also elect a
+Manager-in-Chief, who would appoint the Chiefs of Management, who, in
+turn, would appoint their own subordinates.
+
+"I don't like it, myself," Erskyll said. "It's not democratic enough.
+There should be a direct vote by the people. Well," he grudged, "I
+suppose it will take a little time for them to learn democracy." This
+was the first time he had come out and admitted that. "There is to be a
+Constituent Convention in five years, to draw up a new constitution."
+
+"How about the Convocation? You don't expect them to vote themselves out
+of existence, do you?"
+
+"Oh, we're keeping the Convocation, in the present constitution, but
+they won't have any power. Five years from now, we'll be rid of them
+entirely. Look here; you're not going to work against this, are you? You
+won't advise these ci-devant Lords-Master to vote against it, when it
+comes up?"
+
+"Certainly not. I think your constitution--Khreggor Chmidd's and Tchall
+Hozhet's, to be exact--will be nothing short of a political disaster,
+but it will insure some political stability, which is all that matters
+from the Imperial point of view. An Empire statesman must always guard
+against sympathizing with local factions and interests, and I can think
+of no planet on which I could be safer from any such temptation. If
+these Lords-Master want to vote their throats cut, and the slaves want
+to re-enslave themselves, they may all do so with my complete blessing."
+
+If he had been at all given to dramatic gestures he would then have sent
+for water and washed his hands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Metaphorically, he did so at that moment; thereafter his interest in
+Adityan affairs was that of a spectator at a boring and stupid show,
+watching only because there is nothing else to watch, and wishing that
+it had been possible to have returned to Odin on the _Irma_. The Prime
+Minister, however, was entitled to a full and impartial report, which he
+would scarcely get from Count Erskyll, on this new jewel in the Imperial
+Crown. To be able to furnish that, he would have to remain until the
+Midyear Feasts, when the Convocation would act on the new constitution.
+Whether the constitution was adopted or rejected was, in itself,
+unimportant; in either case, Aditya would have a government recognizable
+as such by the Empire, which was already recognizing some fairly
+unlikely-looking governments. In either case, too, Aditya would make
+nobody on any other planet any trouble. It wouldn't have, at least for a
+long time, even if it had been left unannexed, but no planet inhabited
+by Terro-humans could be trusted to remain permanently peaceful and
+isolated. There is a spark of aggressive ambition in every Terro-human
+people, no matter how debased, which may smoulder for centuries or even
+millennia and then burst, fanned by some random wind, into flame. To
+shift the metaphor slightly, the Empire could afford to leave no
+unwatched pots around to boil over unexpectedly.
+
+Occasionally, he did warn young Erskyll of the dangers of overwork and
+emotional over-involvement. Each time, the Proconsul would pour out some
+tale of bickering and rivalry among the chief-freedmen of the
+Managements. Citizen Khouzhik and Citizen Eschkhaffar--they were all
+calling each other Citizen, now--were contesting overlapping
+jurisdictions. Khouzhik wanted to change the name of his Management--he
+no longer bothered mentioning Sesar Martwynn--to Labor and Industry. To
+this, Mykhyl Eschkhaffar objected vehemently; any Industry that was
+going to be managed would be managed by his--Oraze Borztall was
+similarly left unmentioned--management of Public Works. And they were
+also feuding about the robotic and remote-controlled equipment that had
+been sent down from the _Empress Eulalie_ to the Austragonia
+nuclear-power works.
+
+Khouzhik was also in controversy with Yakoop Zhannar, who was already
+calling himself People's Provost-Marshal. Khouzhik had taken over all
+the private armed-guards on the Masterly farms and in the factories, and
+assimilated them into something he was calling the People's Labor
+Police, ostensibly to enforce the new Code of Employment Practice.
+Zhannar insisted that they should be under his Management; when Chmidd
+and Hozhet supported Khouzhik, he began clamoring for the return of the
+regular army to his control.
+
+Commodore Shatrak was more than glad to get rid of the Adityan army, and
+so was Pyairr Ravney, who was in immediate command of them. The Adityans
+didn't care one way or the other. Zhannar was delighted, and so were
+Chmidd and Hozhet. So, oddly, was Zhorzh Khouzhik. At the same time, the
+state of martial law proclaimed on the day of the landing was
+terminated.
+
+The days slipped by. There were entertainments at the new Proconsular
+Palace for the Masterly residents of Zeggensburg, and Erskyll and his
+staff were entertained at Masterly palaces. The latter affairs pained
+Prince Trevannion excessively--hours on end of gorging uninspired
+cooking and guzzling too-sweet wine and watching ex-slave performers
+whose acts were either brutal or obscene and frequently both, and, more
+unforgivable, stupidly so. The Masterly conversation was simply stupid.
+
+He borrowed a reconn-car from Ravney; he and Lanze Degbrend and,
+usually, one or another of Ravney's young officers, took long trips of
+exploration. They fished in mountain streams, and hunted the small
+deerlike game, and he found himself enjoying these excursions more than
+anything he had done in recent years; certainly anything since Aditya
+had come into the viewscreens of the _Empress Eulalie_. Once in a while,
+they claimed and received Masterly hospitality at some large farming
+estate. They were always greeted with fulsome cordiality, and there was
+always surprise that persons of their rank and consequence should travel
+unaccompanied by a retinue of servants.
+
+He found things the same wherever he stopped. None of the farms were
+producing more than a quarter of the potential yield per acre, and all
+depleting the soil outrageously. Ten slaves--he didn't bother to think
+of them as freedmen--doing the work of one, and a hundred of them taking
+all day to do what one robot would have done before noon. White-gowned
+chief-slaves lording it over green and orange gowned supervisors and
+clerks; overseers still carrying and frequently using whips and knouts
+and sandbag flails.
+
+Once or twice, when a Masterly back was turned, he caught a look of
+murderous hatred flickering into the eyes of some upper-slave. Once or
+twice, when a Master thought his was turned, he caught the same look in
+Masterly eyes, directed at him or at Lanze.
+
+The Midyear Feasts approached; each time he returned to the city he
+found more excitement as preparations went on. Mykhyl Eschkhaffar's
+Management of Public Works was giving top priority to redecorating the
+Convocation Chamber and the lounges and dining-rooms around it in which
+the Masters would relax during recesses. More and more Masterly families
+flocked in from outlying estates, with contragravity-flotillas and
+retinues of attendants, to be entertained at the city palaces. There
+were more and gaudier banquets and balls and entertainments. By the time
+the Feasts began, every Masterly man, woman and child would be in the
+city.
+
+There were long columns of military contragravity coming in, too;
+troop-carriers and combat-vehicles. Yakoop Zhannar was bringing in all
+his newly recovered army, and Zhorzh Khouzhik his newly organized
+People's Labor Police. Vann Shatrak, who was now commanding his
+battle-line unit by screen from the Proconsular Palace, began fretting.
+
+"I wish I hadn't been in such a hurry to terminate martial rule," he
+said, once. "And I wish Pyairr hadn't been so confoundedly efficient in
+retraining those troops. That may cost us a few extra casualties, before
+we're through."
+
+Count Erskyll laughed at his worries.
+
+"It's just this rivalry between Citizen Khouzhik and Citizen Zhannar,"
+he said, "They're like a couple of ci-devant Lords-Master competing to
+give more extravagant feasts. Zhannar's going to hold a review of his
+troops, and of course, Khouzhik intends to hold a review of his police.
+That's all there is to it."
+
+"Well, just the same, I wish some reenforcements would get here from
+Odin," Shatrak said.
+
+Erskyll was busy, in the days before the Midyear Feasts, either
+conferring at the Citadel with the ex-slaves who were the functional
+heads of the Managements or at the Proconsular Palace with Hozhet and
+Chmidd and the chief-freedmen of the influential Convocation leaders and
+Presidium members. Everybody was extremely optimistic about the
+constitution.
+
+He couldn't quite understand the optimism, himself.
+
+"If I were one of these Lords-Master, I wouldn't even consider the
+thing," he told Erskyll. "I know, they're stupid, but I can't believe
+they're stupid enough to commit suicide, and that's what this amounts
+to."
+
+"Yes, it does," Erskyll agreed, cheerfully. "As soon as they enact it,
+they'll be of no more consequence than the Assemblage of Peers on Aton;
+they'll have no voice in the operation of the Commonwealth, and none in
+the new constitution that will be drawn up five years from now. And that
+will be the end of them. All the big estates, and the factories and
+mines and contragravity-ship lines will be nationalized."
+
+"And they'll have nothing at all, except a hamper-full of repudiated
+paper stellies," he finished. "That's what I mean. What makes you think
+they'll be willing to vote for that?"
+
+"They don't know they're voting for it. They'll think they're voting to
+keep control of the Mastership. People like Olvir Nikkolon and Rovard
+Javasan and Ranal Valdry and Sesar Martwynn think they still own their
+chief-freedmen; they think Hozhet and Chmidd and Zhannar and Khouzhik
+will do exactly what they tell them. And they believe anything the
+Hozhets and Chmidds and Zhannars tell them. And every chief-freedman is
+telling his Lord-Employer that the only way they can keep control is by
+adopting the constitution; that they can control the elections on their
+estates, and hand-pick the People's Legislative Council. I tell you,
+Prince Trevannion, the constitution is as good as enacted."
+
+Two days before the opening of the Convocation, the _Irma_ came into
+radio-range, five light-hours away, and began transmitting in taped
+matter at sixty-speed. Erskyll's report and his own acknowledged; a
+routine "well done" for the successful annexation. Commendation for
+Shatrak's handling of the landing operation. Orders to take over
+Aditya-_Alif_ and begin construction of a permanent naval base.
+Notification of promotion to base-admiral, and blank commission as
+line-commodore; that would be Patrique Morvill. And advice that one
+transport-cruiser, _Algol_, with an Army contragravity brigade aboard,
+and two engineering ships, would leave Odin for Aditya in fifteen days.
+The last two words erased much of the new base-admiral's pleasure.
+
+"Fifteen days, great Ghu! And those tubs won't make near the speed of
+_Irma_, getting here. We'll be lucky to see them in twenty. And
+Beelzebub only knows what'll be going on here then."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Four times, the big screen failed to respond. They were all crowded
+into one of the executive conference-rooms at the Proconsular Palace,
+the batteries of communication and recording equipment incongruously
+functional among the gold-encrusted luxury of the original Masterly
+furnishings. Shatrak swore.
+
+"Andrey, I thought your people had planted those pickups where they
+couldn't be found," he said to Commander Douvrin.
+
+"There is no such place, sir," the intelligence officer replied. "Just
+places where things are hard to find."
+
+"Did you mention our pickups to Chmidd or Hozhet or any of the rest of
+the shaveheads?" Shatrak asked Erskyll.
+
+"No. I didn't even know where they were. And it was the freedmen who
+found them," Erskyll said. "I don't know why they wouldn't want us
+looking in."
+
+Lanze Degbrend, at the screen, twisted the dial again, and this time the
+screen flickered and cleared, and they were looking into the Convocation
+Chamber from the extreme rear, above the double doors. Far away, in
+front, Olvir Nikkolon was rising behind the gold and onyx bench, and
+from the speaker the call bell tolled slowly, and the buzz of over two
+thousand whispering voices diminished. Nikkolon began to speak:
+
+"Seven and a half centuries ago, our fathers went forth from Morglay to
+plant upon this planet a new banner...."
+
+It was evidently a set speech, one he had recited year after year, and
+every Lord Chairman of the Presidium before him. The splendid
+traditions. The glories of the Masterly race. The all-conquering Space
+Vikings. The proud heritage of the Sword-Worlds. Lanze was fiddling with
+the control knobs, stepping up magnification and focusing on the
+speaker's head and shoulders. Then everybody laughed; Nikkolon had a
+small plug in one ear, with a fine wire running down to vanish under his
+collar. Degbrend brought back the full view of the Convocation Chamber.
+
+Nikkolon went on and on. Vann Shatrak summoned a robot to furnish him
+with a cold beer and another cigar. Erskyll was drumming an impatient
+devil's tattoo with his fingernails on the gold-encrusted table in front
+of him. Lanze Degbrend began interpolating sarcastic comments. And
+finally, Pyairr Ravney, who came from Lugaluru, reverted to the idiom of
+his planet's favorite sport:
+
+"Come on, come on; turn out the bull! What's the matter, is the gate
+stuck?"
+
+If so, it came quickly unstuck, and the bull emerged, pawing and
+snorting.
+
+"This year, other conquerors have come to Aditya, here to plant another
+banner, the Sun and Cogwheel of the Galactic Empire, and I blush to say
+it, we are as helpless against these conquerors as were the miserable
+barbarians and their wretched serfs whom our fathers conquered seven
+hundred and sixty-two years ago, whose descendants, until this black
+day, had been our slaves."
+
+He continued, his voice growing more impassioned and more belligerent.
+Count Erskyll fidgeted. This wasn't the way the Chmidd-Hozhet
+Constitution ought to be introduced.
+
+"So, perforce, we accepted the sovereignty of this alien Empire. We are
+now the subjects of his Imperial Majesty, Rodrik III. We must govern
+Aditya subject to the Imperial Constitution." (Groans, boos; catcalls,
+if the Adityan equivalent of cats made noises like that.) "At one
+stroke, this Constitution has abolished our peculiar institution, upon
+which is based our entire social structure. This I know. But this same
+Imperial Constitution is a collapsium-strong shielding; let me call your
+attention to Article One, Section Two: _Every Empire planet shall be
+self-governed as to its own affairs, in the manner of its own choice and
+without interference._ Mark this well, for it is our guarantee that this
+government, of the Masters, by the Masters, and for the Masters, shall
+not perish from Aditya." (Prolonged cheering.)
+
+"Now, these arrogant conquerors have overstepped their own supreme law.
+They have written for this Mastership a constitution, designed for the
+sole purpose of accomplishing the liquidation of the Masterly class and
+race. They have endeavored to force this planetary constitution upon us
+by threats of force, and by a shameful attempt to pervert the fidelity
+of our chief-slaves--I will not insult these loyal servitors with this
+disgusting new name, freedmen--so that we might, a second time, be
+tricked into voting assent to our own undoing. But in this, they have
+failed. Our chief-slaves have warned us of the trap concealed in this
+constitution written by the Proconsul, Count Erskyll. My faithful Tchall
+Hozhet has shown me all the pitfalls in this infamous document...."
+
+Obray, Count Erskyll, was staring in dismay at the screen. Then he began
+cursing blasphemously, the first time he had ever been heard to do so,
+and, as he was at least nominally a Pantheist, this meant blaspheming
+the entire infinite universe.
+
+"The rats! The dirty treacherous rats! We came here to help them, and
+look; they've betrayed us...!" He lost his voice in a wheezing sob, and
+then asked: "Why did they do it? Do they want to go on being slaves?"
+
+Perhaps they did. It wasn't for love of their Lords-Master; he was sure
+of that. Even from the beginning, they had found it impossible to
+disguise their contempt....
+
+Then he saw Olvir Nikkolon stop short and thrust out his arm, pointing
+directly below the pickup, and as he watched, something green-gray, a
+remote-control contragravity lorry, came floating into the field of the
+screen. One of the vehicles that had been sent down from the _Empress
+Eulalie_ for use at the uranium mines. As it lifted and advanced toward
+the center of the room, the other Lords-Master were springing to their
+feet.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Vann Shatrak also sprang to his feet, reaching the controls of the
+screen and cutting the sound. He was just in time to save them from
+being, at least temporarily, deafened, for no sooner had he silenced the
+speaker than the lorry vanished in a flash that filled the entire room.
+
+When the dazzle left their eyes, and the smoke and dust began to clear,
+they saw the Convocation Chamber in wreckage, showers of plaster and
+bits of plastiboard still falling from above. The gold and onyx bench
+was broken in a number of places; the Chiefs of Management in front of
+it, and the Presidium above, had vanished. Among the benches lay
+black-clad bodies, a few still moving. Smoke rose from burning clothing.
+Admiral Shatrak put on the sound again; from the screen came screams and
+cries of pain and fright.
+
+Then the doors on the two long sides opened, and red-brown uniforms
+appeared. The soldiers advanced into the Chamber, unslinging rifles and
+submachine guns. Unheeding the still falling plaster, they moved
+forward, firing as they came. A few of them slung their firearms and
+picked up Masterly dress swords, using them to finish the wounded among
+the benches. The screams grew fewer, and then stopped.
+
+Count Erskyll sat frozen, staring white-faced and horror-sick into the
+screen. Some of the others had begun to recover and were babbling
+excitedly. Vann Shatrak was at a communication-screen, talking to
+Commodore Patrique Morvill, aboard the _Empress Eulalie_:
+
+"All the Landing-Troops, and all the crewmen you can spare and arm. And
+every vehicle you have. This is only the start of it; there'll be a
+general massacre of Masters next. I don't doubt it's started already."
+
+At another screen, Pyairr Ravney was saying, to the officer of the day
+of the Palace Guard: "No, there's no telling what they'll do next.
+Whatever it is, be ready for it ten minutes ago."
+
+He stubbed out his cigarette and rose, and as he did, Erskyll came out
+of his daze and onto his feet.
+
+"Commodore Shatrak! I mean, Admiral," he corrected himself. "We must
+re-impose martial rule. I wish I'd never talked you into terminating it.
+Look at that!" He pointed at the screen; big dump-lorries were already
+coming in the doors under the pickup, with a mob of gowned civil-service
+people crowding in under them. They and the soldiers began dragging
+bodies out from among the seats to be loaded and hauled away. "There's
+the planetary government, murdered to the last man!"
+
+"I'm afraid we can't do anything like that," he said. "This seems to be
+a simple transfer of power by _coup-d'etat_; rather more extreme than
+usual, but normal political practice on this sort of planet. The Empire
+has no right to interfere."
+
+Erskyll turned on him indignantly. "But it's mass murder!"
+
+"It's an accomplished fact. Whoever ordered this, Citizen Chmidd and
+Citizen Hozhet and Citizen Zhannar and the rest of your good democratic
+citizens, are now the planetary government of Aditya. As long as they
+don't attack us, or repudiate the sovereignty of the Emperor, you'll
+have to recognize them as such."
+
+"A bloody-handed gang of murderers; recognize them?"
+
+"All governments have a little blood here and there on their hands;
+you've seen this by screen instead of reading about it in a history
+book, but that shouldn't make any difference. And you've said,
+yourself, that the Masters would have to be eliminated. You've told
+Chmidd and Hozhet and the others that, repeatedly. Of course, you meant
+legally, by constitutional and democratic means, but that seemed just a
+bit too tedious to them. They had them all together in one room, where
+they could be eliminated easily, and ... Lanze; see if you can get
+anything on the Citadel telecast."
+
+Degbrend put on another communication-screen and fiddled for a moment.
+What came on was a view, from another angle, of the Convocation Chamber.
+A voice was saying:
+
+"... not one left alive. The People's Labor Police, acting on orders of
+People's Manager of Labor Zhorzh Khouzhik and People's Provost-Marshal
+Yakoop Zhannar, are now eliminating the rest of the ci-devant Masterly
+class, all of whom are here in Zeggensburg. The people are directed to
+cooperate; kill them all, men, women and children. We must allow none of
+these foul exploiters of the people live to see today's sun go down...."
+
+"You mean, we sit here while those animals butcher women and children?"
+Shatrak demanded, looking from the Proconsul to the Ministerial
+Secretary. "Well, by Ghu, I won't! If I have to face a court for it, all
+well and good, but...."
+
+"You won't, Admiral. I seem to recall, some years ago, a Commodore
+Hastings, who got a baronetcy for stopping a pogrom on Anath...."
+
+"And broadcast an announcement that any of the Masterly class may find
+asylum here at the Proconsular Palace. They're political fugitives;
+scores of precedents for that," Erskyll added.
+
+Shatrak was back at the screen to the _Empress Eulalie_.
+
+"Patrique, get a jam-beam focussed on that telecast station at the
+Citadel; get it off the air. Then broadcast on the same wavelength;
+announce that anybody claiming sanctuary at the Proconsular Palace will
+be taken in and protected. And start getting troops down, and all the
+spacemen you can spare."
+
+At the same time, Ravney was saying, into his own screen:
+
+"Plan Four. Variation H-3; this is a rescue operation. This is not,
+repeat, underscore, _not_ an intervention in planetary government. You
+are to protect members of the Masterly class in danger from mob
+violence. That's anybody with hair on his head. Stay away from the
+Citadel; the ones there are all dead. Start with the four buildings
+closest to us, and get them cleared out. If the shaveheads give you any
+trouble, don't argue with them, just shoot them...."
+
+Erskyll, after his brief moment of decisiveness, was staring at the
+screen to the Convocation Chamber, where bodies were still being heaved
+into the lorries like black sacks of grain. Lanze Degbrend summoned a
+robot, had it pour a highball, and gave it to the Proconsul.
+
+"Go ahead, Count Erskyll; drink it down. Medicinal," he was saying.
+"Believe me you certainly need it."
+
+Erskyll gulped it down. "I think I could use another, if you please," he
+said, handing the glass back to Lanze. "And a cigarette." After he had
+tasted his second drink and puffed on the cigarette, he said: "I was so
+proud. I thought they were learning democracy."
+
+"We don't, any of us, have too much to be proud about," Degbrend told
+him. "They must have been planning and preparing this for a couple of
+months, and we never caught a whisper of it."
+
+That was correct. They had deluded Erskyll into thinking that they were
+going to let the Masters vote themselves out of power and set up a
+representative government. They had deluded the Masters into believing
+that they were in favor of the _status quo_, and opposed to Erkyll's
+democratization and socialization. There must be only a few of them in
+the conspiracy. Chmidd and Hozhet and Zhannar and Khouzhik and Schferts
+and the rest of the Citadel chief-slave clique. Among them, they
+controlled all the armed force. The bickering and rivalries must have
+been part of the camouflage. He supposed that a few of the upper army
+commanders had been in on it, too.
+
+A communication-screen began making noises. Somebody flipped the switch,
+and Khreggor Chmidd appeared in it. Erskyll swore softly, and went to
+face the screen-image of the elephantine ex-slave of the ex-Lord Master,
+the late Rovard Javasan.
+
+"Citizen Proconsul; why is our telecast station, which is vitally needed
+to give information to the people, jammed off the air, and why are you
+broadcasting, on our wavelength, advice to the criminals of the
+ci-devant Masterly class to take refuge in your Proconsular Palace from
+the just vengeance of the outraged victims of their century-long
+exploitation?" he began. "This is a flagrant violation of the Imperial
+Constitution; our Emperor will not be pleased at this unjustified
+intervention in the affairs, and this interference with the planetary
+authority, of the People's Commonwealth of Aditya!"
+
+Obray of Erskyll must have realized, for the first time, that he was
+still holding a highball glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
+He flung both of them away.
+
+"If the Imperial troops we are sending into the city to rescue women and
+children in danger from your hoodlums meet with the least resistance,
+you won't be in a position to find out what his Majesty thinks about it,
+because Admiral Shatrak will have you and your accomplices shot in the
+Convocation Chamber, where you massacred the legitimate government of
+this planet," he barked.
+
+So the real Obray, Count Erskyll, had at last emerged. All the
+liberalism and socialism and egalitarianism, all the Helping-Hand,
+Torch-of-Democracy, idealism, was merely a surface stucco applied at the
+university during the last six years. For twenty-four years before that,
+from the day of his birth, he had been taught, by his parents, his
+nurse, his governess, his tutors, what it meant to be an Erskyll of Aton
+and a grandson of Errol, Duke of Yorvoy. As he watched Khreggor Chmidd
+in the screen, he grew angrier, if possible.
+
+"Do you know what you blood-thirsty imbeciles have done?" he demanded.
+"You have just murdered, along with two thousand men, some five billion
+crowns, the money needed to finance all these fine modernization and
+industrialization plans. Or are you crazy enough to think that the
+Empire is going to indemnify you for being emancipated and pay that
+money over to you?"
+
+"But, Citizen Proconsul...."
+
+"And don't call me Citizen Proconsul! I am a noble of the Galactic
+Empire, and on this pigpen of a planet I represent his Imperial Majesty.
+You will respect, and address, me accordingly."
+
+Khreggor Chmidd no longer wore the gorget of servility, but, as Lanze
+Degbrend had once remarked, it was still tattooed on his soul. He
+gulped.
+
+"Y-yes, Lord-Master Proconsul!"
+
+They were together again in the big conference-room, which Vann Shatrak
+had been using, through the day, as an extemporised Battle-Control. They
+slumped wearily in chairs; they smoked and drank coffee; they anxiously
+looked from viewscreen to viewscreen, wondering when, and how soon, the
+trouble would break out again. It was dark, outside, now. Floodlights
+threw a white dazzle from the top of the Proconsular Palace and from the
+tops of the four buildings around it that Imperial troops had cleared
+and occupied, and from contragravity vehicles above. There was light and
+activity at the Citadel, and in the Servile City to the south-east; the
+rest of Zeggensburg was dark and quiet.
+
+"I don't think we'll have any more trouble," Admiral Shatrak was saying.
+"They won't be fools enough to attack us here, and all the Masters are
+dead, except for the ones we're sheltering."
+
+"How many did we save?" Count Erskyll asked.
+
+Eight hundred odd, Shatrak told him. Erskyll caught his breath.
+
+"So few! Why, there were almost twelve thousand of them in the city this
+morning."
+
+"I'm surprised we saved so many," Lanze Degbrend said. He still wore
+combat coveralls, and a pistol-belt lay beside his chair. "Most of them
+were killed in the first hour."
+
+And that had been before the landing-craft from the ships had gotten
+down, and there had only been seven hundred men and forty vehicles
+available. He had gone out with them, himself; it had been the first
+time he had worn battle-dress and helmet or carried a weapon except for
+sport in almost thirty years. It had been an ugly, bloody, business; one
+he wanted to forget as speedily as possible. There had been times, after
+seeing the mutilated bodies of Masterly women and children, when he had
+been forced to remind himself that he had come out to prevent, not to
+participate in, a massacre. Some of Ravney's men hadn't even tried.
+Atrocity has a horrible facility for begetting atrocity.
+
+"What'll we do with them?" Erskyll asked. "We can't turn them loose;
+they'd all be murdered in a matter of hours, and in any case, they'd
+have nowhere to go. The Commonwealth,"--he pronounced the name he had
+himself selected as though it were an obscenity--"has nationalized all
+the Masterly property."
+
+That had been announced almost as soon as the Citadel telecast-station
+had been unjammed, and shortly thereafter they had begun encountering
+bodies of Yakoop Zhannar's soldiers and Zhorzh Khouzhik's police who had
+been sent out to stop looting and vandalism and occupy the Masterly
+palaces. There had been considerable shooting in the Servile City;
+evidently the ex-slaves had to be convinced that they must not pillage
+or destroy their places of employment.
+
+"Evacuate them off-planet," Shatrak said. "As soon as _Algol_ gets here,
+we'll load the lot of them onto _Mizar_ or _Canopus_ and haul them
+somewhere. Ghu only knows how they'll live, but...."
+
+"Oh, they won't be paupers, or public charges, Admiral," he said. "You
+know, there's an estimated five billion crowns in slave-compensation,
+and when I return to Odin I shall represent most strongly that these
+survivors be paid the whole sum. But I shall emphatically not recommend
+that they be resettled on Odin. They won't be at all grateful to us for
+today's business, and on Odin they could easily stir up some very
+adverse public sentiment."
+
+"My resignation will answer any criticism of the Establishment the
+public may make," Erskyll began.
+
+"Oh, rubbish; don't talk about resigning, Obray. You made a few mistakes
+here, though I can't think of a better planet in the Galaxy on which you
+could have made them. But no matter what you did or did not do, this
+would have happened eventually."
+
+"You really think so?" Obray, Count Erskyll, was desperately anxious to
+be assured of that. "Perhaps if I hadn't been so insistent on this
+constitution...."
+
+"That wouldn't have made a particle of difference. We all made this
+inevitable simply by coming here. Before we came, it would have been
+impossible. No slave would have been able even to imagine a society
+without Lords-Master; you heard Chmidd and Hozhet, the first day, aboard
+the _Empress Eulalie_. A slave had to have a Master; he simply couldn't
+belong to nobody at all. And until you started talking socialization,
+nobody could have imagined property without a Masterly property-owning
+class. And a massacre like this would have been impossible to organize
+or execute. For one thing, it required an elaborate conspiratorial
+organization, and until we emancipated them, no slave would have dared
+trust any other slave; every one would have betrayed any other to curry
+favor with his Lord-Master. We taught them that they didn't need
+Lords-Master, or Masterly favor, any more. And we presented them with a
+situation their established routines didn't cover, and forced them into
+doing some original thinking, which must have hurt like Nifflheim at
+first. And we retrained the army and handed it over to Yakoop Zhannar,
+and inspired Zhorzh Khouzhik to organize the Labor Police, and
+fundamentally, no government is anything but armed force. Really, Obray,
+I can't see that you can be blamed for anything but speeding up an
+inevitable process slightly."
+
+"You think they'll see it that way at Asgard?"
+
+"You mean the Prime Minister and His Majesty? That will be the way I
+shall present it to them. That was another reason I wanted to stay on
+here. I anticipated that you might want a credible witness to what was
+going to happen," he said. "Now, you'll be here for not more than five
+years before you're promoted elsewhere. Nobody remains longer than that
+on a first Proconsular appointment. Just keep your eyes and ears and,
+especially, your mind, open while you are here. You will learn many
+things undreamed-of by the political-science faculty at the University
+of Nefertiti."
+
+"You said I made mistakes," Erskyll mentioned, ready to start learning
+immediately.
+
+"Yes. I pointed one of them out to you some time ago: emotional
+involvement with local groups. You began sympathizing with the servile
+class here almost immediately. I don't think either of us learned
+anything about them that the other didn't, yet I found them despicable,
+one and all. Why did you think them worthy of your sympathy?"
+
+"Why, because...." For a moment, that was as far as he could get. His
+motivation had been thalamic rather than cortical and he was having
+trouble externalizing it verbally. "They were _slaves_. They were being
+exploited and oppressed...."
+
+"And, of course, their exploiters were a lot of heartless villains, so
+that made the slaves good and virtuous innocents. That was your real,
+fundamental, mistake. You know, Obray, the downtrodden and
+long-suffering proletariat aren't at all good or innocent or virtuous.
+They are just incompetent; they lack the abilities necessary for overt
+villainy. You saw, this afternoon, what they were capable of doing when
+they were given an opportunity. You know, it's quite all right to give
+the underdog a hand, but only one hand. Keep the other hand on your
+pistol--or he'll try to eat the one you gave him! As you may have
+noticed, today, when underdogs get up, they tend to turn out to be
+wolves."
+
+"What do you think this Commonwealth will develop into, under Chmidd and
+Hozhet and Khouzhik and the rest?" Lanze Degbrend asked, to keep the
+lecture going.
+
+"Oh, a slave-state, of course; look who's running it, and whom it will
+govern. Not the kind of a slave-state we can do anything about," he
+hastened to add. "The Commonwealth will be very definite about
+recognizing that sapient beings cannot be property. But all the rest of
+the property will belong to the Commonwealth. Remember that remark of
+Chmidd's: 'It will belong to everybody, but somebody will have to take
+care of it for everybody. That will be you and me.'"
+
+Erskyll frowned. "I remember that. I didn't like it, at the time. It
+sounded...."
+
+Out of character, for a good and virtuous proletarian; almost Masterly,
+in fact. He continued:
+
+"The Commonwealth will be sole employer as well as sole property-owner,
+and anybody who wants to eat will have to work for the Commonwealth on
+the Commonwealth's terms. Chmidd's and Hozhet's and Khouzhik's, that is.
+If that isn't substitution of peonage for chattel slavery, I don't know
+what the word peonage means. But you'll do nothing to interfere. You
+will see to it that Aditya stays in the empire and adheres to the
+Constitution and makes no trouble for anybody off-planet. I fancy you
+won't find that too difficult. They'll be good, as long as you deny them
+the means to be anything else. And make sure that they continue to call
+you Lord-Master Proconsul."
+
+Lecturing, he found, was dry work. He summoned a bartending robot:
+
+"Ho, slave! Attend your Lord-Master!"
+
+Then he had to use his ultraviolet pencil-light to bring it to him, and
+dial for the brandy-and-soda he wanted. As long as that was necessary,
+there really wasn't anything to worry about. But some of these days,
+they'd build robots that would anticipate orders, and robots to operate
+robots, and robots to supervise them, and....
+
+No. It wouldn't quite come to that. A slave is a slave, but a robot is
+only a robot. As long as they stuck to robots, they were reasonably
+safe.
+
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+| Errata                                                       |
+|                                                              |
+| The following typographical errors were corrected.           |
+|                                                              |
+|        |Page |Error         |Correction   |                  |
+|        |4    |Terrohuman    |Terro-human  |                  |
+|        |10   |present;      |present,     |                  |
+|        |19   |tessallated   |tessellated  |                  |
+|        |28   |announcemnet  |announcement |                  |
+|        |28   |intransigeant |intransigent |                  |
+|        |36   |tattoed       |tattooed     |                  |
+|        |37   |salutory      |salutary     |                  |
+|        |41   |constituion   |constitution |                  |
+|        |43   |belligerant   |belligerent  |                  |
+|                                                              |
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Slave is a Slave, by Henry Beam Piper
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