United States or Andorra ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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."
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 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.
"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.
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.
Word Of The Day