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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?"
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."
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.
Why don't they rebel?" "Well, I can think of three good reasons," Douvrin said. "Three square meals a day." "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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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