"You mean, give them money?" Ranal Valdry, the Lord Provost-Marshal demanded, incredulously. "Pay our own slaves?"
"You idiot," somebody told him, "they aren't our slaves any more. That's the whole point of this discussion."
"But ... but how can we pay slaves?" one of the committeemen-at-large asked. "Freedmen, I mean?"
"With money. You do have money, haven't you?"
"Of course we have. What do you think we are, savages?"
"What kind of money?"
Why, money; what did he think? The unit was the star-piece, the stelly. When he asked to see some of it, they were indignant. Nobody carried money; wasn't Masterly. A Master never even touched the stuff; that was what slaves were for. He wanted to know how it was secured, and they didn't know what he meant, and when he tried to explain their incomprehension deepened. It seemed that the Mastership issued money to finance itself, and individual Masters issued money on their personal credit, and it was handled through the Mastership Banks.
"That's Fedrig Daffysan's Management; he isn't here," Rovard Javasan said. "I can't explain it, myself."
And without his chief-slave, Fedrig Daffysan probably would not be able to, either.
"Yes, gentlemen. I understand. You have money. Now, the first thing you will have to do is furnish us with a complete list of all the slave-owners on the planet, and a list of all the slaves held by each. This will be sent back to Odin, and will be the basis for the compensation to be paid for the destruction of your property-rights in these slaves. How much is a slave worth, by the way?"