Part 5 (1/2)

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 Masters.h.i.+p.

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 Const.i.tution; if you do not abolish it immediately, the Empire will be forced to intervene. I believe, toward the last of those audio-visuals, you saw some examples of Imperial intervention.”

They had. A few looked apprehensively at the ceiling, as though expecting the h.e.l.lburners 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 owners.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p. Jurgen, Prince Trevannion was inclined to agree. He doubted if any of the Lords-Master he had seen were to be trusted, una.s.sisted, to fix a broken mouse-trap.

Line-Commodore Vann Shatrak was also worried. He was wondering how long it would take for Pyairr Ravney to make useful troops out of the newly-surrendered slave soldiers, and where he was going to find contragravity to s.h.i.+ft them expeditiously from trouble-spot to trouble-spot. Erskyll thought he was antic.i.p.ating resistance on the part of the Masters, and for once he approved the use of force. Ordinarily, force was a Bad Thing, but this was a Good Cause, which justified any means.

They entertained the committee from the Convocation for dinner, that evening. They came aboard stiffly hostile--most understandably so, under the circ.u.mstances--and Prince Trevannion exerted all his copious charm to thaw them out, beginning with the pre-dinner c.o.c.ktails and continuing through the meal. By the time they retired for coffee and brandy to the parlor where the conference was to be held, the Lords-ex-Masters were almost friendly.

”We've enacted the Emanc.i.p.ation Act,” Olvir Nikkolon, who was ex officio chairman of the committee, reported. ”Every slave on the planet must be free before the opening of the next Midyear Feasts.”

”And when will that be?”

Aditya, he knew, had a three hundred and fifty-eight day year; even if the Midyear Feasts were just past, they were giving themselves very little time. In about a hundred and fifty days, Nikkolon said.

”Good heavens!” Erskyll began, indignantly.

”I should say so, myself,” he put in, cutting off anything else the new Proconsul might have said. ”You gentlemen are allowing yourselves dangerously little time. A hundred and fifty days will pa.s.s quite rapidly, and you have twenty million slaves to deal with. If you start at this moment and work continuously, you'll have a little under a second apiece for each slave.”

The Lords-Master looked dismayed. So, he was happy to observe, did Count Erskyll.

”I a.s.sume you have some system of slave registration?” he continued.

That was safe. They had a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies tend to have registrations of practically everything.

”Oh, yes, of course,” Rovard Javasan a.s.sured him. ”That's your Management, isn't it, Sesar; Servile Affairs?”

”Yes, we have complete data on every slave on the planet,” Sesar Martwynn, the Chief of Servile Management, said. ”Of course, I'd have to ask Zhorzh about the details....”

Zhorzh was Zhorzh Khouzhik, Martwynn's chief-slave in office.

”At least, he was my chief-slave; now you people have taken him away from me. I don't know what I'm going to do without him. For that matter, I don't know what poor Zhorzh will do, either.”

”Have you gentlemen informed your chief-slaves that they are free, yet?”

Nikkolon and Javasan looked at each other. Sesar Martwynn laughed.

”They know,” Javasan said. ”I must say they are much disturbed.”