at some large farming
estate. They were always greeted with fulsome cordiality, and there was
always surprise that persons of their rank and consequence should travel
unaccompanied by a retinue of servants.

He found things the same wherever he stopped. None of the farms were
producing more than a quarter of the potential yield per acre, and all
depleting the soil outrageously. Ten slaves--he didn't bother to think
of them as freedmen--doing the work of one, and a hundred of them taking
all day to do what one robot would have done before noon. White-gowned
chief-slaves lording it over green and orange gowned supervisors and
clerks; overseers still carrying and frequently using whips and knouts
and sandbag flails.

Once or twice, when a Masterly back was turned, he caught a look of
murderous hatred flickering into the eyes of some upper-slave. Once or
twice, when a Master thought his was turned, he caught the same look in
Masterly eyes, directed at him or at Lanze.

The Midyear Feasts approached; each time he returned to the city he
found more excitement as preparations went on. Mykhyl Eschkhaffar's
Management of Public Works was giving top priority to redecorating the
Convocation Chamber and the lounges and dining-rooms around it in which
the Masters would relax during recesses. More and more Masterly families
flocked in from outlying estates, with contragravity-flotillas and
retinues of attendants, to be entertained at the city palaces. There
were more and gaudier banquets and balls and entertainments. By the time
the Feasts began, every Masterly man, woman and child would be in the
city.

There were long columns of military contragravity coming in, too;
troop-carriers and combat-vehicles. Yakoop Zhannar was bringing in all
his newly recovered army, and Zhorzh Khouzhik his newly organized
People's Labor Police. Vann Shatrak, who was now commanding his
battle-line unit by screen from the Proconsular Palace, began fretting.

"I wish I hadn't been in such a hurry to terminate martial rule," he
said, once. "And I wish Pyairr hadn't been so confoundedly efficient in
retraining those troops. That may cost us a few extra casualties, before
we're through."

Count Erskyll laughed at his worries.

"It's just this rivalry between Citizen Khouzhik and Citizen Zhannar,"
he said, "They're like a couple of ci-devant Lords-Master competing to
give more extravagant feasts. Zhannar's going to hold a review of his
troops, and of