“Not at all. In fact, I’d say Gathuurifold is unusually peaceful. War is quite rare. Because of all the things that slaves have been known to do, provoking wars is rarely one of them.”

Rigg thought about this for a moment. “You mean everybody in Gathuurifold is a slave?”

“Slavery became pervasive, with this wrinkle, that slaves could own property which did not belong to their owners. That meant that slaves can own slaves, who own slaves, who own slaves.”

“If you can own property, how are you a slave?” asked Rigg.

“Because your owner can move you to one place or another, can break up your marriage, can sell your children to some other owner, can decide how much education you’ll receive, and what work you’ll do, and what hours you’ll keep.”

“And this system persists?” asked Rigg.

“I’m not saying I like it,” said Ram Odin. “It’s just another way of organizing human life. It’s only been like this for fifteen hundred years or so, and Wall-to-Wall for only nine centuries. But in human terms, nine centuries might as well be forever. People here have little idea that society can be organized any other way.”

“Everybody owns everybody?” Rigg asked.

“Everybody is owned by somebody,” said Ram Odin. “There are plenty of people who don’t own anybody.”

“So who’s at the top of this pyramid? Who owns him?”

“I own him,” said Ram Odin. “Or, properly speaking, you do, since you are now the master of all ships. But since you didn’t know about this system, you haven’t been giving him any instructions. Therefore he continues to follow the last instructions I gave him. And for our purposes in Gathuurifold, you are posing as his slave.”

“Gathuuriex,” said Rigg. “The Lord of Walls is the expendable.”

“Who else?” said Ram Odin. “He never dies. He travels wherever he wants in his flying house, to make sure that his slaves are doing his will. I’ve instructed him to govern with a light hand. Whenever possible, he adjudicates disputes by making them work it out themselves, within certain parameters. He only goes after the Savages when they become particularly destructive, which he forestalls by making sure there are feeding stations in hard winters and droughts.”

“Savages? So not everyone is in this slave system?”

“No system is good for everybody,” said Ram Odin. “So yes, some people run away and escape into the wild. But most of them come back. The wild isn’t safe. Nobody knows who they belong to, and so there are no rules.”

“You make it sound like slavery is a good idea,” said Rigg.