A Slave is a Slave | Page 5

till after lunch. Delay them on
Isobel; the skipper can see that they have their own lunch aboard. And
entertain them with some educational films. Something to convince
them that there is slightly more to the Empire than one ship-of-the-line,
two cruisers and four destroyers."

Count Erskyll was dissatisfied about that, too. He wanted to see the
delegation at once and make arrangements to talk to their superiors.
Count Erskyll, among other things, was zealous, and of this he
disapproved. Zealous statesmen perhaps did more mischief than
anything in the Galaxy--with the possible exception of procrastinating
soldiers. That could indicate the fundamental difference between
statecraft and war. He'd have to play with that idea a little.
* * * * *
An Empire ship-of-the-line was almost a mile in diameter. It was more
than a battle-craft; it also had political functions. The grand salon, on
the outer zone where the curvature of the floors was less disconcerting,
was as magnificent as any but a few of the rooms of the Imperial Palace
at Asgard on Odin, the floor richly carpeted and the walls alternating
mirrors and paintings. The movable furniture varied according to
occasion; at present, it consisted of the bare desk at which they sat, the
three chairs they occupied, and the three secretary-robots, their
rectangular black casts blazened with the Sun and Cogwheel of the
Empire. It faced the door, at the far end of the room; on either side, a
rank of spacemen, in dress uniform and under arms, stood.
In principle, annexing a planet to the Empire was simplicity itself, but
like so many things simple in principle, it was apt to be complicated in
practice, and to this, he suspected, the present instance would be no
exception.
In principle, one simply informed the planetary government that it was
now subject to the sovereignty of his Imperial Majesty, the Galactic
Emperor. This information was always conveyed by a Ministerial
Secretary, directly under the Prime Minister and only one more step
down from the Emperor, in the present instance Jurgen, Prince
Trevannion. To make sure that the announcement carried conviction,
the presumedly glad tidings were accompanied by the Imperial Space
Navy, at present represented by Commodore Vann Shatrak and a seven
ship battle-line unit, and two thousand Imperial Landing-Troops.
When the locals had been properly convinced--with as little bloodshed

as necessary, but always beyond any dispute--an Imperial Proconsul, in
this case Obray, Count Erskyll, would be installed. He would by no
means govern the planet. The Imperial Constitution was definite on that
point; every planetary government should be sovereign as to
intraplanetary affairs. The Proconsul, within certain narrow and entirely
inelastic limits, would merely govern the government.
Unfortunately, Obray, Count Erskyll, appeared not to understand this
completely. It was his impression that he was a torch-bearer of Imperial
civilization, or something equally picturesque and metaphorical. As he
conceived it, it was the duty of the Empire, as represented by himself,
to make over backward planets like Aditya in the image of Odin or
Marduk or Osiris or Baldur or, preferably, his own home world of
Aton.
This was Obray of Erskyll's first proconsular appointment, it was due to
family influence, and it was a mistake. Mistakes, of course, were
inevitable in anything as large and complex as the Galactic Empire, and
any institution guided by men was subject to one kind of influence or
another, family influence being no worse than any other kind. In this
case, the ultra-conservative Erskylls of Aton, from old Errol, Duke of
Yorvoy, down, had become alarmed at the political radicalism of young
Obray, and had, on his graduation from the University of Nefertiti,
persuaded the Prime Minister to appoint him to a Proconsulate as far
from Aton as possible, where he would not embarrass them. Just at that
time, more important matters having been gotten out of the way, Aditya
had come up for annexation, and Obray of Erskyll had been named
Proconsul.
That had been the mistake. He should have been sent to some planet
which had been under Imperial rule for some time, where the
Proconsulate ran itself in a well-worn groove, and where he could at
leisure learn the procedures and unlearn some of the unrealisms
absorbed at the University from professors too well insulated from the
realities of politics.
* * * * *

There was a stir among the guards; helmet-visors were being snapped
down; feet scuffed. They stiffened to attention, the great doors at the
other end of the grand salon slid open, and the guards presented arms as
the Adityan delegation was ushered in.
There were fourteen of them. They all wore ankle-length gowns, and
they all had shaven heads. The one in the lead carried a staff and wore a
pale green gown; he was apparently