“I assume that you are agreed to accept the sovereignty of his Imperial Majesty? Good. As a matter of form, Lord Nikkolon, will you take a vote? His Imperial Majesty would be most gratified if it were unanimous.”
Somebody insisted that the question would have to be debated, which meant that everybody would have to make a speech, all two thousand of them. He informed them that there was nothing to debate; they were confronted with an accomplished fact which they must accept. So Nikkolon made a speech, telling them at what a great moment in Adityan history they stood, and concluded by saying:
“I take it that it is the unanimous will of this Convocation that the sovereignty of the Galactic Emperor be acknowledged, and that we, the ‘Mastership of Aditya’ do here proclaim our loyal allegiance to his Imperial Majesty, Rodrik the Third. Any dissent? Then it is ordered so recorded.”
Then he had to make another speech, to inform the representatives of his new sovereign of the fact. Prince Trevannion, in the name of the Emperor, delivered the well-worn words of welcome, and Lanze Degbrend got the coronet out of the black velvet bag under his arm and the Imperial Proconsul, Obray, Count Erskyll, was crowned. Erskyll’s charge-d’affaires, Sharll Ernanday, produced the scroll of the Imperial Constitution, and Erskyll began to read.
Section One: The universality of the Empire. The absolute powers of the Emperor. The rules of succession. The Emperor also to be Planetary King of Odin.
Section Two: Every planetary government to be sovereign in its own internal affairs. … Only one sovereign government upon any planet, or within normal-space travel distance. … All hyperspace ships, and all nuclear weapons. … No planetary government shall make war … enter into any alliance … tax, regulate or restrain interstellar trade or communication. … Every sapient being shall be equally protected. …
Then he came to Article Six. He cleared his throat, raised his voice, and read:
“There shall be no chattel-slavery or serfdom anywhere in the Empire; no sapient being, of any race whatsoever, shall be the property of any being but himself.
”
The Convocation Chamber was silent, like a bomb with a defective fuse, for all of thirty seconds. Then it blew up with a roar. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the doors slide apart and an airjeep, bristling with machine guns, float in and rise to the ceiling. The first inarticulate roar was followed by a babel of voices, like a tropical cloudburst on a prefab hut. Olvir Nikkolon’s mouth was working as he shouted unheard.
He pressed another of the row of buttons on the arm of his chair. Out of the screen-speaker a voice, as loud, by actual sound-meter test, as an anti-vehicle gun, thundered:
“Silence!”
Into the shocked stillness which it produced, he spoke, like a schoolmaster who has returned to find his room in an uproar:
“Lord Nikkolon; what is this nonsense? You are Chairman of the Presidium; is this how you keep order here? What is this, a planetary parliament or a spaceport saloon?”
“You tricked us!” Nikkolon accused. “You didn’t tell us about that article when we voted. Why, our whole society is based on slavery!”
Other voices joined in:
“That’s all right for you people, you have robots. …”
“Maybe you don’t know it, but there are twenty million slaves on this planet. …”
“Look, you can’t free slaves! That’s ridiculous. A slave’s a slave!”
“Who’ll do the work? And who would they belong to? They’d have to belong to somebody!”
“What I want to know,” Rovard Javasan made himself heard, is, “how are you going to free them?”
There was an ancient word, originating in one of the lost languages of Pre-Atomic Terra—sixtifor
. It meant, the basic, fundamental, question. Rovard Javasan, he suspected, had just asked the sixtifor. Of course, Obray, Count Erskyll, Planetary Proconsul of Aditya, didn’t realize that. He didn’t even know what Javasan meant. Just free them. Commodore Vann Shatrak couldn’t see much of a problem, either. He would have answered, Just free them, and then shoot down the first two or three thousand who took it seriously. Jurgen, Prince Trevannion, had no intention whatever of attempting to answer the sixtifor.
“My dear Lord Javasan, that is the problem of the Adityan Mastership. They are your slaves; we have neither the intention nor the right to free them. But let me remind you that slavery is specifically prohibited by the Imperial Constitution; if you do not abolish it immediately, the Empire will be forced to intervene. I believe, toward the last of those audiovisuals, you saw some examples of Imperial intervention.”
They had. A few looked apprehensively at the ceiling, as though expecting the hellburners and planet-busters and nega-matter-bombs at any moment. Then one of the members among the benches rose.
“We don’t know how we are going to do it, Prince Trevannion,” he said. “We will do it, since this is the Empire law, but you will have to tell us how.”
“Well, the first thing will have to be an Act of Convocation, outlawing the ownership of one being by another. Set some definite date on which the slaves must all be freed; that need not be too immediate. Then, I would suggest that you set up some agency to handle all the details. And, as soon as you have enacted the abolition of slavery, which should be this afternoon, appoint a committee, say a dozen of you, to confer with Count Erskyll and myself. Say you have your committee aboard the Empress Eulalie in six hours. We’ll have transportation arranged by then. And let me point out, I hope for the last time, that we discuss matters directly, without intermediaries. 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. He doubted if any of the
