e surviving members. The Presidium appointed
the Chiefs of Managements, who also served for life.

At least, it had stability. It was self-perpetuating.

"Does the Convocation make the laws?" Erskyll asked.

Hozhet was perplexed. "_Make_ laws, Lord Proconsul? Oh, no. We have
laws."

There were planets, here and there through the Empire, where an attitude
like that would have been distinctly beneficial; planets with elective
parliaments, every member of which felt himself obligated to get as many
laws enacted during his term of office as possible.

"But this is dreadful; you _must_ have a constitution!" Obray of Erskyll
was shocked. "We will have to get one drawn up and adopted."

"We don't know anything about that at all," Khreggor Chmidd admitted.
"This is something new. You will have to help us."

"I certainly will, Mr. Chmidd. Suppose you form a committee--yourself,
and Mr. Hozhet, and three or four others; select them among
yourselves--and we can get together and talk over what will be needed.
And another thing. We'll have to stop calling this the Mastership. There
are no more Masters."

"The Employership?" Lanze Degbrend dead-panned.

Erskyll looked at him angrily. "This is something," he told the
chief-freedmen, "that should not belong to the Employers alone. It
should belong to everybody. Let us call it the Commonwealth. That means
something everybody owns in common."

"Something everybody owns, nobody owns," Mykhyl Eschkhaffar objected.

"Oh, no, Mykhyl; it will belong to everybody," Khreggor Chmidd told him
earnestly. "But somebody will have to take care of it for everybody.
That," he added complacently, "will be you and me and the rest of us
here."

"I believe," Yakoop Zhannar said, almost smiling, "that this freedom is
going to be a wonderful thing. For us."

"I don't like it!" Mykhyl Eschkhaffar said stubbornly. "Too many new
things, and too much changing names. We have to call slaves freedmen; we
have to call Lords Master Lords-Employer; we have to call the Management
of Servile Affairs the Management for Freedmen. Now we have to call the
Mastership this new name, Commonwealth. And all these new things, for
which we have no routine procedures and no directives. I wish these
people had never heard of this planet."

"That makes at least two of us," Patrique Morvill said, _sotto voce_.

"Well, the planetary constitution can wait just a bit," Prince
Trevannion suggested. "We have a great many