e supervisors to direct the overseers, slave administrators to
direct them, slave secretaries and bookkeepers, slave technicians and
engineers."

"How about the professions, Lanze?"

"All slave. Slave physicians, teachers, everything like that. All the
Masters are taught by slaves; the slaves are educated by apprenticeship.
The courts are in the hands of slaves; cases are heard by the chief
slaves of judges who don't even know where their own courtrooms are;
every Master has a team of slave lawyers. Most of the lawsuits are
estate-inheritance cases; some of them have been in litigation for
generations."

"What do the Lords-Master do?" Shatrak asked.

"Masterly things," Degbrend replied. "I was only down there since noon,
but from what I could find out, that consists of feasting, making love
to each other's wives, being entertained by slave performers, and
feuding for social precedence like wealthy old ladies on Odin."

"You got this from the slaves? How did you get them to talk, Lanze?"

* * * * *

Degbrend and Ravney exchanged amused glances. Ravney said:

"Well, I detailed a sergeant and six privates to accompany Honorable
Degbrend," Ravney said. "They.... How would you put it, Lanze?"

"I asked a slave a question. If he refused to answer, somebody knocked
him down with a rifle-butt," Degbrend replied. "I never had to do that
more than once in any group, and I only had to do it three times in all.
After that, when I asked questions, I was answered promptly and fully.
It is surprising how rapidly news gets around the Citadel."

"You mean you had those poor slaves beaten?" Erskyll demanded.

"Oh, no. Beating implies repeated blows. We only gave one to a customer;
that was enough."

"Well, how about the army, if that's what those people in the long
red-brown coats were?" Shatrak changed the subject by asking Ravney.

"All slave, of course, officers and all. What will we do about them,
sir? I have about three thousand, either confined to their barracks or
penned up in the Citadel. I requisitioned food for them, paid for it in
chits. There were a few isolated companies and platoons that gave us
something of a fight; most of them just threw away their weapons and
bawled for quarter. I've segregated the former; with your approval, I'll
put them under Imperial officers and noncoms for a quickie training in
our tactics, and then use them to train the rest."

"Do that, Pyairr. We o