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Updated: July 22, 2025


There was another dais on the right, under a canopy of black and gold velvet, emblazoned with the gold sun and superimposed black cogwheel of the Empire. There were three thrones, for himself, Shatrak, and Erskyll, and a number of lesser but still imposing chairs for their staffs. They took their seats.

"Authoritarian," Shatrak said, then mimicked pompously: "'Everybody is commanded to remain calm; the Mastership is taking action. The Convocation of the Lords-Master is in special session; they will decide how to deal with the invaders. The administrators are directed to reassure the supervisors; the overseers will keep the workers at their tasks.

When his eyes fell on Vann Shatrak, he brightened. "Are you," he asked, "the chief-slave of the chief Lord-Master of this ship?" Shatrak's face turned pink; the pink darkened to red. He used a word; it was a completely unprintable word. So, except for a few scattered pronouns, conjunctions and prepositions, were the next fifty words he used. The herald stiffened.

"Too bad we can't just issue everybody new servile gorgets marked, Personal Property of his Imperial Majesty and let it go at that. But I guess we can't." "Commodore Shatrak, you are joking," Erskyll began. "I hope I am," Shatrak replied grimly. The top landing-stage of the Citadel grew and filled the forward viewscreen of the ship's launch.

"I don't think we'll have any more trouble," Admiral Shatrak was saying. "They won't be fools enough to attack us here, and all the Masters are dead, except for the ones we're sheltering." "How many did we save?" Count Erskyll asked. Eight hundred odd, Shatrak told him. Erskyll caught his breath. "So few! Why, there were almost twelve thousand of them in the city this morning."

There had been considerable shooting in the Servile City; evidently the ex-slaves had to be convinced that they must not pillage or destroy their places of employment. "Evacuate them off-planet," Shatrak said. "As soon as Algol gets here, we'll load the lot of them onto Mizar or Canopus and haul them somewhere. Ghu only knows how they'll live, but...."

He flung both of them away. "If the Imperial troops we are sending into the city to rescue women and children in danger from your hoodlums meet with the least resistance, you won't be in a position to find out what his Majesty thinks about it, because Admiral Shatrak will have you and your accomplices shot in the Convocation Chamber, where you massacred the legitimate government of this planet," he barked.

"Count Erskyll" he finished, "is doing the best possible under circumstances from which I myself would feel inclined to shrink. If not carried to excess, perhaps youthful idealism is not without value in Empire statecraft. I understand that Commodore Shatrak, who is also coping with some very trying problems, is requesting troop reenforcements.

He was still standing at present arms when Trevannion blanked the screen. "That still doesn't excuse a wanton and unprovoked aggression!" Erskyll was telling Shatrak, his thin face flushed and his voice quivering with indignation. "We came here to help these people, not to murder them." "We didn't come here to do either, Obray," he said, turning to face the younger man.

The two delegates behind him were aghast. The subordinate burden-bearers in the rear began looking around apprehensively. "I," Shatrak finally managed, "am an officer of his Imperial Majesty's Space Navy. I am in command of this battle-line unit. I am not" he reverted briefly to obscenity "a slave." "You mean, you are a Lord-Master, too?"

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