e cat, who insisted
on catching mice and bringing them as presents to all his human friends.
To this cat's mind, it was inconceivable that anybody would not be most
happy to receive a nice fresh-killed mouse.

"Too bad we have to set any of them free," Vann Shatrak said. "Too bad
we can't just issue everybody new servile gorgets marked, _Personal
Property of his Imperial Majesty_ and let it go at that. But I guess we
can't."

"Commodore Shatrak, you are joking," Erskyll began.

"I hope I am," Shatrak replied grimly.

* * * * *

The top landing-stage of the Citadel grew and filled the forward
viewscreen of the ship's launch. It was only when he realized that the
tiny specks were people, and the larger, birdseed-sized, specks
vehicles, that the real size of the thing was apparent. Obray of
Erskyll, beside him, had been silent. He had been looking at the
crescent-shaped industrial city, like a servile gorget around
Zeggensburg's neck.

"The way they've been crowded together!" he said. "And the buildings; no
space between. And all that smoke! They must be using fossil-fuel!"

"It's probably too hard to process fissionables in large quantities,
with what they have."

"You were right, last evening. These people have deliberately halted
progress, even retrogressed, rather than give up slavery."

Halting progress, to say nothing of retrogression, was an unthinkable
crime to him. Like freedom, progress was a Good Thing, anywhere, at all
times, and without regard to direction.

Colonel Ravney met them when they left the launch. The top landing-stage
was swarming with Imperial troops.

"Convocation Chamber's three stages down," he said. "About two thousand
of them there now; been coming in all morning. We have everything set
up." He laughed. "They tell me slaves are never permitted to enter it.
Maybe, but they have the place bugged to the ceiling all around."

"Bugged? What with?" Shatrak asked, and Erskyll was wanting to know what
he meant. No doubt he thought Ravney was talking about things crawling
out of the woodwork.

"Screen pickups, radio pickups, wired microphones; you name it and it's
there. I'll bet every slave in the Citadel knows everything that happens
in there while it's happening."

Shatrak wanted to know if he had done anything about them. Ravney shook
his head.

"If that's how they want to run a government, that's how they have a
right to run it. Commander Douvrin