A Slave is a Slave

by H. Beam Piper

belongto somebody!"

  "What I want to know," Rovard Javasan made himself heard, is, "_how_ areyou going to free them?"

  There was an ancient word, originating in one of the lost languages ofPre-Atomic Terra--_sixtifor_. It meant, the basic, fundamental,question. Rovard Javasan, he suspected, had just asked the sixtifor. Ofcourse, Obray, Count Erskyll, Planetary Proconsul of Aditya, didn'trealize that. He didn't even know what Javasan meant. Just free them.Commodore Vann Shatrak couldn't see much of a problem, either. He wouldhave answered, Just free them, and then shoot down the first two orthree thousand who took it seriously. Jurgen, Prince Trevannion, had nointention 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 tofree them. But let me remind you that slavery is specifically prohibitedby the Imperial Constitution; if you do not abolish it immediately, theEmpire will be forced to intervene. I believe, toward the last of thoseaudio-visuals, you saw some examples of Imperial intervention."

  They had. A few looked apprehensively at the ceiling, as thoughexpecting the hellburners and planet-busters and nega-matter-bombs atany 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 tellus how."

  "Well, the first thing will have to be an Act of Convocation, outlawingthe ownership of one being by another. Set some definite date on whichthe slaves must all be freed; that need not be too immediate. Then, Iwould suggest that you set up some agency to handle all the details.And, as soon as you have enacted the abolition of slavery, which shouldbe this afternoon, appoint a committee, say a dozen of you, to conferwith Count Erskyll and myself. Say you have your committee aboard the_Empress Eulalie_ in six hours. We'll have transportation arranged bythen. And let me point out, I hope for the last time, that we discussmatters 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 theLords-Master were to be trusted to abolish slavery; he said so, on thelaunch, returning to the ship. Jurgen, Prince Trevannion was inclined toagree. He doubted if any of the Lords-Master he had seen were to betrusted, unassisted, to fix a broken mouse-trap.

  Line-Commodore Vann Shatrak was also worried. He was wondering how longit would take for Pyairr Ravney to make useful troops out of thenewly-surrendered slave soldiers, and where he was going to findcontragravity to shift them expeditiously from trouble-spot totrouble-spot. Erskyll thought he was anticipating resistance on the partof 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 anymeans.

  They entertained the committee from the Convocation for dinner, thatevening. They came aboard stiffly hostile--most understandably so, underthe circumstances--and Prince Trevannion exerted all his copious charmto thaw them out, beginning with the pre-dinner cocktails and continuingthrough the meal. By the time they retired for coffee and brandy to theparlor where the conference was to be held, the Lords-ex-Masters werealmost friendly.

  "We've enacted the Emancipation Act," Olvir Nikkolon, who was ex officiochairman of the committee, reported. "Every slave on the planet must befree 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 ifthe Midyear Feasts were just past, they were giving themselves verylittle 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 newProconsul might have said. "You gentlemen are allowing yourselvesdangerously little time. A hundred and fifty days will pass quiterapidly, and you have twenty million slaves to deal with. If you startat this moment and work continuously, you'll have a little under asecond apiece for each slave."

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

  "I assume you have some system of slave registration?" he continued.

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

  "Oh, yes, of course," Rovard Javasan assured him. "That's yourManagement, isn't it, Sesar; Servile Affairs?"

  "Yes, we have complete data on every slave on the planet," SesarMartwynn, the Chief of Servile Management, said. "Of course, I'd have toask 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 awayfrom 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."

  "Well, reassure them, as soon as you're back at the Citadel," he toldthem. "Tell them that while they are now free, they need not leave youunless they so desire; that you will provide for them as before."

  "You mean, we can keep our chief-slaves?" somebody cried.

  "Yes, of course--chief-freedmen, you'll have to call them, now. You'llhave to pay them a salary...."

  "You mean, give them money?" Ranal Valdry, the Lord Provost-Marshaldemanded, incredulously. "Pay our own slaves?"

  "You idiot," somebody told him, "they aren't our slaves any more. That'sthe whole point of this discussion."

  "But ... but how can we pay slaves?" one of the committeemen-at-largeasked. "Freedmen, I mean?"

  "With money. You do have money, haven't you?"

  "Of course we have. What do you think we are, savages?"

  "What kind of money?"

  Why, money; what did he think? The unit was the star-piece, the stelly.When he asked to see some of it, they were indignant. Nobody carriedmoney; wasn't Masterly. A Master never even touched the stuff; that waswhat slaves were for. He wanted to know how it was secured, and theydidn't know what he meant, and when he tried to explain theirincomprehension deepened. It seemed that the Mastership issued money tofinance itself, and individual Masters issued money on their personalcredit, and it was handled through the Mastership Banks.

  "That's Fedrig Daffysan's Management; he isn't here," Rovard Javasansaid. "I can't explain it, myself."

  And without his chief-slave, Fedrig Daffysan probably would not be ableto, either.

  "Yes, gentlemen. I understand. You have money. Now, the first thing youwill have to do is furnish us with a complete list of all theslave-owners on the planet, and a list of all the slaves held by each.This will be sent back to Odin, and will be the basis for thecompensation to be paid for the destruction of your property-rights inthese slaves. How much is a slave worth, by the way?"

  Nobody knew. Slaves were never sold; it wasn't Masterly to sell one'sslaves. It wasn't even heard of.

  "Well, we'll arrive at some valuation. Now, as soon as you get back tothe Citadel, talk at once to your former chief-slaves, and theirimmediate subordinates, and explain the situation to them. This can bepassed down through administrative freedmen to the workers; you must seeto it that it is clearly understood, at all levels, that as long as thefreedmen remain at their work they will be provided for and paid, butthat if they quit your service they will receive nothing. Do you thinkyou can do that?"

  "You mean, give them everything we've been giving them now, and then paythem money?" Ranal Valdry almost howled.

  "Oh, no. You pay them a fixed wage. You charge them for everything yougive them, and deduct that from their wages. It will mean considerableextra bookkeeping, but outside of that I believe you'll find th
at thingswill go along much as they always did."

  The Masters had begun to relax, and by the time he was finished all ofthem were smiling in relief. Count Erskyll, on the other hand, wasalmost writhing in his chair. It must be horrible to be a brilliantyoung Proconsul of liberal tendencies and to have to sit mute while acynical old Ministerial Secretary, vastly one's superior in theImperial Establishment and a distant cousin of the Emperor to boot,calmly bartered away the sacred liberties of twenty million people.

  "But would that be legal, under the Imperial Constitution?" OlvirNikkolon asked.

  "I shouldn't have