“A self-assured, independent young man with a mouth on him? They would think your owner had done a bad job of training you and they wouldn’t want to bring trouble into their house.”

“I was being ironic,” said Rigg.

“I wasn’t,” said Ram Odin.

“Couldn’t I be your slave?”

“Nobody would send an old man like me out on extended errands. Much more convincing if you’re the Wallman, and I’m your old clerk and adviser. If you were the slave, then I’d have to treat you like one, and you would truly, truly hate that. No, if you want freedom of action, you have to be a Wallman, and that means you have to do a Wallman’s job. Suck it up, Rigg, and take it like a man.”

“But the decisions I make as a judge—”

“Are final. There is no appeal. And you’ll have this wise old adviser at your side. Trust me. You’ll do as well as any of the other Wallmen.”

They clattered along in a carriage. The vehicle was well-sprung, but the road was not in good condition, so there was a great deal of jouncing, and for all the clatter, they didn’t make that much forward progress. “I’m not impressed with the road maintenance,” said Rigg.

“You can take it up with the master of roads,” said Ram Odin. “I’m sure you can get a lot of road repair started while you’re in the area.”

“But it won’t continue after I’m gone.”

“The master of roads belongs to someone who isn’t you. If his master wanted him to fix this stretch of road, it would already be fixed.”

“And this system works well enough to be universal?”

“I could have taken you to one of the places where it works best,” said Ram Odin. “But then I’d be deceiving you, wouldn’t I? No system works well unless good people do their jobs with integrity, and then almost any system works well enough.”

“It’s the problem with authority, at all times,” said Ram Odin. “You only know what your subordinates tell you, and your commands are only carried out as long as your subordinates feel like it.”

Rigg couldn’t argue with that. He had seen enough of that already, and it was one of the principles Father had taught him.

Father. Lord of Walls. The same mechanical men, playing different roles in different places. What Ram Odin didn’t have to say was this: If you want a job to be done by someone you can trust, who won’t lie to you, who’ll persist in his obedience, get yourself a mechanical slave.

Of course, your mechanical slave will lie to everyone else, in order to achieve your purposes. But I am lying to everybody in Gathuurifold, in order to achieve my purposes. Purity is so hard to achieve.