“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. “Everything will be just as before, except that the Lords-Master will be called Lords-Employer, and the slaves will be called freedmen, and any time they want to starve to death, they can leave their Employers if they wish.”
Count Erskyll frowned. That wasn’t just exactly what he had hoped Emancipation would mean to these people.
“Nobody seems to understand about this money thing, though,” Zhorzh Khouzhik, Sesar Martwynn’s chief-freedman said. “My Lord-Master—” He slapped himself across the mouth and said, “Lord-Employer!” five times, rapidly. “My Lord-Employer tried to explain it to me, but I don’t think he understands very clearly, himself.”
“None of them do.”
The speaker was a small man with pale eyes and a mouth like a rattrap; 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. Labor was a commodity, which the worker sold and the employer purchased; a “fair wage” was one which enabled both to operate at a profit. Everybody knew that—except here on Aditya. On Aditya, a slave worked because he was a slave, and a Master provided for him because he was a Master, and that was all there was to it. But now, it seemed, there weren’t any more Masters, and there weren’t any more slaves.
“That’s exactly it,” he replied, when somebody said as much. “So now, if the slaves, I mean, freedmen, want to eat, they have to work to earn money to buy food, and if the Employers want work done, they have to pay people to do it.”
“Then why go to all the trouble about the money?” That was an elderly chief-freedman, Mykhyl Eschkhaffar, whose Lord-Employer, Oraze Borztall, was Manager of Public Works. “Before your ships came, the slaves worked for the Masters, and the Masters took care of the slaves, and everybody was content. Why not leave it like that?”
“Because the Galactic Emperor, who is the Lord-Master of these people, says that there must be no more slaves. Don’t ask me why,” Tchall Hozhet snapped at him. “I don’t know, either. But they are here with ships and guns and soldiers; what can we do?”
“That’s very close to it,” he admitted. “But there is one thing you haven’t considered. A slave only gets what his master gives him. 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. 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.” That was Ridgerd Schferts (Fedrig Daffysan; Fiscal Management). “I am sure we could all make quite a lot of money, now that we are freedmen.”
Some of them were briefly puzzled; gradually, comprehension dawned. Obray, Count Erskyll, looked distressed; he seemed to be hoping, vainly, that they weren’t thinking of what he suspected they were.
“How about the Mastership freedmen?” another asked. “We, here, will be paid by our Lords-Mas. … Lords-Employer. But everybody from the green robes down were provided for by the Mastership. Who will pay them, now?”
“Why, the Mastership, of course,” Ridgerd Schferts said. “My Management—my Lord-Employer’s, I mean—will issue the money to pay them.”
“You may need a new printing-press,” Lanze Degbrend said. “And an awful lot of paper.”
“This planet will need currency acceptable in interstellar trade,” Erskyll said.
Everybody looked blankly at him. He changed the subject:
“Mr. Chmidd, could you or Mr. Hozhet tell me what kind of a constitution the Mastership has?”
“You mean, like the paper you read in the Convocation?” Hozhet asked. “Oh, there is nothing at all like that. The former Lords-Master simply ruled.”
No. They reigned. This servile tammanihal
—another ancient Terran word, of uncertain origin—ruled.
“Well, how is the Mastership organized, then?” Erskyll persisted. “How did the Lord Nikkolon get to be Chairman of the Presidium, and the Lord Javasan to be Chief of Administration?”
That was very simple. The Convocation, consisting of the heads of all the Masterly families, actually small clans, numbered about twenty-five hundred. They elected the seven members of the Presidium, who drew lots for the Chairmanship. They served for life. Vacancies were filled by election on nomination of the surviving members. The Presidium appointed the Chiefs of Managements, who also served for life.
At least, it had stability. It was self-perpetuating.
“Does the Convocation make the laws?” Erskyll asked.
Hozhet was perplexed. “Make laws, Lord Proconsul? Oh, no. We have laws.”
There were planets, here and there through the Empire, where an attitude like that would have been distinctly beneficial; planets with elective parliaments, every member of which felt himself obligated to get as many laws enacted during his term of office as possible.
“But this is dreadful; you must have a constitution!” Obray of Erskyll was shocked. “We will have to get one drawn up and adopted.”
“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;
