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"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?"
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." "I am sure we could all make quite a lot of money, now that we are freedmen."
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 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.
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.
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.
"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.
"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.
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.
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