When it met Beth, Skorta made a bow which could only be described as courtly. It told her that it had had a life-mate who had perished in the Scourge many years earlier, and it had not met another who had engaged its intellect and its emotions to anything like the same extent, but that the fault was probably its own because several of the teaching slaves had made overtures.
Martin left them talking while he went to the computer’s Fabrications module. He did not intend going down to meet the Masters either empty-handed or with an empty backpack.
Beth joined him as he was listing and describing his requirements to the Fabricator.
“I like your friend,” she said, leaning over his shoulder. “Right now it’s in the observation blister and looks as if it will stay there for a long time. You know, I still don’t agree with what you intend doing, but I can understand why you don’t want to let it face the Masters alone…No! You can’t take that!”
She was pointing at the image of the Fabricator’s drafting screen, and before he could respond she went on vehemently, “You are not allowed to carry weapons. The Federation absolutely forbids it in a first-contact situation. Maybe your only hope of surviving this meeting is to go in unarmed as a demonstration that your intentions are good even though you may have stirred up a hornets nest. Going down there is stupid enough!”
Her face was without color, and it was plain that she was desperately afraid that she might never see Martin alive again if he returned to Teldi and the Masters. She wanted him to forget all about it, to return with their assignment incomplete and to stay alive, but she knew that he would not do that.
Reassuringly, he said, “I don’t expect to use the weapon on anyone. And I’m beginning to understand the setup here at last. I’ll be all right, you’ll see…”
Because of their deep emotional involvement, it was more than two hours before she was properly reassured and fully satisfied in all respects, and Martin was able to collect the Teldin from the observation blister.
He found that the teaching slave had not moved, seemingly, from the position in which Beth had placed it. Remembering the high acuity and tight sensitivity of Tel-din eyes, Martin could understand why. Not only could it see surface features on the planet below which Martin would have required high magnification to resolve, but from the now-orbiting hypership the number of stars it could see even in this sparsely populated region of the galaxy must have paralyzed it with wonder. He had to tell Skorta three times that the lander was ready to leave before it responded.
“Having looked upon all this splendor,” it said, and its four arms rose and its head bowed in a gesture which was like an act of worship, “how can I go on living as a slave?”
Martin was not surprised to find that the polar city was bitingly cold, that the level of technology apparent was much higher than that of the valley they had recently left, and that Skorta, who had been born here, was able to direct the lander to within a few meters of the entrance to the Hall of the Masters. What did surprise him was that the Hall was ablaze with artificial light.
“A courtesy extended to a highly placed slave of a strange Master,” the Teldin said, “a slave with imperfect vision. It means nothing more.”
The Hall itself was surprisingly small. He thought that the debating chamber of the legendary Camelot might have looked a little like this, except that the Teldin table was horseshoe shaped rather than round, and partially bridging the open end was a small, square table and a chair. At a slow, measured pace, Skorta led him toward them and, when they arrived, motioned for him to stand at one side of the chair while it stood at the other.
“You are in the presence of the Masters of Teldi,” it announced, and bowed its head briefly. Martin did the same.
There were several unoccupied spaces around the horseshoe. Before every Master’s chair, whether it was occupied or not, the richly embroidered flags were spread so that their emblems hung down from the inside edge of the table. Lying on the flags were the swords of the Masters who were present. All of the Masters were adult, some of them looked very old and, so far as Martin could see, they showed no physical signs of the usual self-indulgence and excesses of beings with ultimate authority over a planet’s entire population. And these omniscient and all-powerful rulers of Teldi numbered only seventeen.
He stood silently as the teaching slave was questioned regarding Martin’s arrival and his subsequent words and actions by a Teldin whose flag bore the emblem of the Master of Sea- and Land-borne Communications. He thought that the Master of Education would have been more appropriate until he remembered that that Mastership was vacant and its authority shared by two other Masters on a caretaker basis. This particular Master was about to experience a lesson in communication that it would not soon forget.
They continued to ignore Martin’s presence while Skorta described the rockslide and the strange vessel’s protective device which had saved the students from certain death.
It’s trying to make a hero of me, Martin thought gratefully. But the interrogator was not impressed.
The master wanted to know where the students would normally have been had the invitation to see its vessel not been issued. It added, obviously for Martin’s benefit, that Skorta was no doubt aware that a slave was the property and sole responsibility of its Master, and that any serious wrongdoing on the slave’s part should result hi the punishment of that Master.
Martin smiled at the thought of these seventeen sword-carrying absolute rulers of Teldi trying to punish the Federation for negligence in his training. But the smile faded when he thought of the Federation’s reaction to the news that Teldi held it culpable for his present misbehavior.
At times like these, he thought wryly, there was a lot to be said for the life of a happy and obedient slave.
Skorta was concluding its report. It said, “On being told of my instructions to report to the Hall of the Masters as quickly as possible, the stranger offered to bring me here in its ship. On the way we visited the larger vessel, which had been responsible for shielding the entire city from the Scourge while it was freeing the trapped students. There I spoke to the stranger’s life-mate and looked down on Teldi, on all of Teldi, and at the stars.”
“That experience,” the interrogator said quietly, “we envy you. Do you feel friendship for this stranger?”
“I believe that we feel friendship for each other, Master,” Skorta replied.
“Is this the reason why it accompanied you,” the Master asked, “when you must have explained to it that the safer course would have been to leave this world and its Masters, whom it so grievously insulted?”
“It is,” Skorta said. “This stranger also wanted to deliver a message to you from its Master and would not be dissuaded.”
The interrogator made an untranslatable sound and said, “A staunch friend, perhaps, but undeniably a most presumptuous slave. Why is its Master not present?”
Quickly the teaching slave explained that the stranger’s Master was of a different species which breathed an atmosphere noxious to Teldins, and could not speak face to face with any person not of its own species. Skorta ended, “This was the reason why the stranger was instructed to land on Teldi as an intermediary.”
The interrogator recoiled, as if it had just heard a very dirty word, then went on, “Intermediaries are not to be trusted, ever. Their words are hearsay, untrustworthy, irresponsible, and cause misunderstanding and distress. Only a Master can be believed without doubt or question. That is the Prime Law.”
Martin could remain silent no longer. “There were good reasons for the mistrust of hearsay, one thousand one hundred and seventeen of your years ago. But now the Prime Law has become a ritual and a means for enforcing…”