items on the agenda which
must be taken care of immediately. For instance, there's this thing
about finding a proconsular palace...."

* * * * *

A surprising amount of work had been done at the small tables where
Erskyll's staff of political and economic and technological experts had
been conferring with the subordinate upper-freedmen. It began coming out
during the pre-dinner cocktails aboard the _Empress Eulalie_, continued
through the meal, and was fully detailed during the formal debriefing
session afterward.

Finding a suitable building for the Proconsular Palace would present
difficulties. Real estate was not sold on Aditya, any more than slaves
were. It was not only un-Masterly but illegal; estates were all entailed
and the inalienable property of Masterly families. What was wanted was
one of the isolated residential towers in Zeggensburg, far enough from
the Citadel to avoid an appearance of too close supervision. The last
thing anybody wanted was to establish the Proconsul in the Citadel
itself. The Management of Business of the Mastership, however, had
promised to do something about it. That would mean, no doubt, that the
_Empress Eulalie_ would be hanging over Zeggensburg, serving as
Proconsular Palace, for the next year or so.

The Servile Management, rechristened Freedmen's Management, would
undertake to safeguard the rights of the newly emancipated slaves. There
would be an Employment Code--Count Erskyll was invited to draw that
up--and a force of investigators, and an enforcement agency, under
Zhorzh Khouzhik.

One of Commander Douvrin's men, who had been at the Austragonia
nuclear-industries establishment, was present and reported:

"Great Ghu, you ought to see that place! They've people working in
places I wouldn't send an unshielded robot, and the hospital there is
bulging with radiation-sickness cases. The equipment must have been
brought here by the Space Vikings. What's left of it is the damnedest
mess of goldbergery I ever saw. The whole thing ought to be shut down
and completely rebuilt."

Erskyll wanted to know who owned it. The Mastership, he was told.

"That's right," one of his economics men agreed. "Management of Public
Works." That would be Mykhyl Eschkhaffar, who had so bitterly objected
to the new nomenclature. "If anybody needs fissionables for a
power-reactor or radioactives for nuclear-electric conversion, his chief
business slave gets what's ne