“And there’s a serious danger of the Sessamids liking the idea of universal slavery and importing it to Ramfold.”

Ram Odin chuckled. “I hadn’t thought of that. They’d fail, but they’d be envious of the idea of owning everybody.”

“I think what matters here is that they’ve accommodated slavery to human proportions. They’ve adapted it so people can bear to live with it.”

Ram Odin gestured for him to go on.

“Slaves owning property, including other slaves. That means that nobody’s a pure owner—they’re all accountable to somebody above them. With the Lord of Walls and the Wallmen as a court of last appeal. It’s a check on the power of ownership.”

“But it’s still ownership,” said Ram Odin.

“Yes. People have surrendered a huge amount of personal choice. But not economic choice. They still decide what to spend their money on.”

“That’s why there’s still an economy,” said Ram Odin. “Very good.”

“Economic freedom means that relative prosperity is still ­possible—even for the slaves at the bottom of the ownership heap. They can aspire. And slavery itself appeals to people who don’t want the risks of freedom. If their lives go bad, there’s always someone else to blame. They don’t have to think and decide and bear the consequences of their own choices.”

“Very good,” said Ram Odin. “I think of slavery in Gathuurifold as a kind of climax feudalism. As feudalism was supposed to work but never did. And this system did not work well when there was a small ownership class and bribery was rampant. Corruption sapped all prosperity out of the system and the owners did what they wanted, spreading misery and havoc.”

“But that would have led to revolution, eventually,” said Rigg. “A revolution that you eliminated by instituting this benign Lord of Walls.”

“That’s true,” said Ram Odin. “And I would be duly ashamed of myself except that near-universal slavery persisted for centuries, corrupt and oppressive in the extreme, and there was no revolution. And then we were getting close enough to the end of the world that I decided that instead of letting millions die in a social upheaval that would not only mean bloody war but also economic dislocations that would lead to poverty and starvation and misery on a large scale, I would simply tidy things up and let all these ­people have what happiness was possible within this strange, oppressive system, until the Destroyers come and wipe them all out.”

“I don’t know if that was a good decision,” said Rigg. “You could just as easily have decided that since they were going to die anyway, you might as well let them die fighting for freedom as passively waiting like cattle in the slaughterhouse.”