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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.
"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."
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.
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. Vann Shatrak also sprang to his feet, reaching the controls of the screen and cutting the sound.
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.
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.
"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."
"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.
"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?"
"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.
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