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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...."
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!"
"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.
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?"
"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.
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.
"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."
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.
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.
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."
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