They dined late, in Commodore Shatrak’s private dining room. Beside Shatrak, Erskyll and himself, there were Lanze Degbrend, and Count Erskyll’s charge-d’affaires, Sharll Ernanday, and Patrique Morvill and Pyairr Ravney and the naval intelligence officer, Commander Andrey Douvrin. Ordinarily, he deplored serious discussion at meals, but under the circumstances it was unavoidable; nobody could think or talk of anything else. The discussion which he had hoped would follow the meal began before the soup-course.
“We have a total population of about twenty million,” Lanze Degbrend reported. “A trifle over ten thousand Masters, all ages and both sexes. The remainder are all slaves.”
“I find that incredible,” Erskyll declared promptly. “Twenty million people, held in slavery by ten thousand! Wh
