them and
you will be in the future?"

"Oh, yes, Lord Proconsul," Khreggor Chmidd replied happily. "Everything
will be just as before, except that the Lords-Master will be called
Lords-Employer, and the slaves will be called freedmen, and any time
they want to starve to death, they can leave their Employers if they
wish."

Count Erskyll frowned. That wasn't just exactly what he had hoped
Emancipation would mean to these people.

"Nobody seems to understand about this money thing, though," Zhorzh
Khouzhik, Sesar Martwynn's chief-freedman said. "My Lord-Master--" He
slapped himself across the mouth and said, "Lord-Employer!" five times,
rapidly. "My Lord-_Employer_ tried to explain it to me, but I don't
think he understands very clearly, himself."

"None of them do."

The speaker was a small man with pale eyes and a mouth like a rat-trap;
Yakoop Zhannar, chief-freedman to Ranal Valdry, the Provost-Marshal.

"Its really your idea, Prince Trevannion," Erskyll said. "Perhaps you
can explain it."

"Oh, it's very simple. You see...."

At least, it had seemed simple when he started. Labor was a commodity,
which the worker sold and the employer purchased; a "fair wage" was one
which enabled both to operate at a profit. Everybody knew that--except
here on Aditya. On Aditya, a slave worked because he was a slave, and a
Master provided for him because he was a Master, and that was all there
was to it. But now, it seemed, there weren't any more Masters, and there
weren't any more slaves.

"That's exactly it," he replied, when somebody said as much. "So now, if
the slaves, I mean, freedmen, want to eat, they have to work to earn
money to buy food, and if the Employers want work done, they have to pay
people to do it."

[Illustration]

"Then why go to all the trouble about the money?" That was an elderly
chief-freedman, Mykhyl Eschkhaffar, whose Lord-Employer, Oraze Borztall,
was Manager of Public Works. "Before your ships came, the slaves worked
for the Masters, and the Masters took care of the slaves, and everybody
was content. Why not leave it like that?"

"Because the Galactic Emperor, who is the Lord-Master of these people,
says that there must be no more slaves. Don't ask me why," Tchall Hozhet
snapped at him. "I don't know, either. But they are here with ships and
guns and soldiers; what can we do?"

"That's very close to it," he admitted. "But there is one thing you
haven't considered. A slave only gets what