"I don't know what you mean. The Service sets a valuation on the different sorts of labor. For instance, if an expert accountant and a street cleaner each work one hour, the accountant will receive credit for ten hours and the scavenger credit for half an hour. I suppose you might say the system is based on working time."
"And the value is not set by either employer or employed?"
Her eyes widened. "Let the Numbers say how much a man's labor is worth? Whoever heard of such a thing! Why, they would grind each other into the ground."
"They are at least free to work for each other or not as they please, I suppose?"
"Certainly. Why, they are perfectly free in every way. They even own all the property except the Temple itself and the officials' private residences."
Drayton was hopelessly at sea. Was this system a tyranny, as he had indefinitely suspected, or was it the freest and most orderly of governments?
"Forgive my stupidity," he apologized. "I don't even yet understand. Instead of the dollar you make an hour's labor the unit and then set a fixed schedule of labor value. But the work of two men at the same job is hardly ever of equal worth. How do you-"
"Wait," she broke in impatiently. "When you are yourself one of us, sir, you may understand these arrangements better. Penn Service owns practically nothing; but it rules everything. It is perfectly impartial. One man's labor is as good as another's. Any one who refused to give or take a certificate would have the Service to deal with."
"And yet the Service itself never pays for anything and takes what it likes of goods or labor. But according to that your whole population are mere slaves, and their ownership of property a mockery! Who are these Servants of Penn that hold such power?"
She stared at him, a hard look in her green eyes.