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"You mean, give them everything we've been giving them now, and then pay them money?" Ranal Valdry almost howled. "Oh, no. You pay them a fixed wage. You charge them for everything you give them, and deduct that from their wages. It will mean considerable extra bookkeeping, but outside of that I believe you'll find that things will go along much as they always did."
The speaker was a small man with pale eyes and a mouth like a rat-trap; Yakoop Zhannar, chief-freedman to Ranal Valdry, the Provost-Marshal. "Its really your idea, Prince Trevannion," Erskyll said. "Perhaps you can explain it." "Oh, it's very simple. You see...." At least, it had seemed simple when he started.
People like Olvir Nikkolon and Rovard Javasan and Ranal Valdry and Sesar Martwynn think they still own their chief-freedmen; they think Hozhet and Chmidd and Zhannar and Khouzhik will do exactly what they tell them. And they believe anything the Hozhets and Chmidds and Zhannars tell them.
Ranal Valdry, the Lord Provost-Marshal demanded, incredulously. "Pay our own slaves?" "You idiot," somebody told him, "they aren't our slaves any more. That's the whole point of this discussion." "But ... but how can we pay slaves?" one of the committeemen-at-large asked. "Freedmen, I mean?" "With money. You do have money, haven't you?" "Of course we have. What do you think we are, savages?"
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