"Eventually I was chief stooge to the very official who had confiscated my ship and trade goods years earlier, and I was helping him get richer while getting rich myself. If he recognized me, he never said so-a beard changes my looks quite a lot. Unfortunately he fell into disfavor and I wound up with his job."

"How did you work that, Lazarus? Without being caught, I mean?"

"Now, now, Ira! He was my benefactor. It said so in my contract and I always addressed him as such. Allah's ways are mysterious. I cast a horoscope for him, warning him that his stars were in bad shape. And so they were. That system is one of the few I know of with two usable planets around the same star, both colonized and with trade between them. Artifacts and slaves-"

"'Slaves,' Lazarus? While I am aware of such a practice on Supreme, I didn't think that vice was very common. Not economic."

The old man closed his eyes, kept them closed so long I thought he had fallen asleep (he often did during the early days of these talks). Then he opened them and spoke very grimly:

"Ira, this vice is far more common than historians usually mention. Uneconomic, yes-a slave society can't compete with a free one. But with the Galaxy as wide as it is, there is usually no such competition. Slavery can and does exist many times and places, whenever the Laws are rigged to permit it.

"I said that I would do almost anything to support my wives and kids-and I have; I have shoveled human excrement for a pittance, standing in it up to my knees, rather than let a child go hungry. But this I will not touch. Nor is it because I was once a slave myself; I have always felt this way. Call it a 'belief' or dignify it as a deep moral conviction. Whatever it is, for me it is beyond argument. If the human animal has any value at all, he is too valuable to be property. If he has any inner dignity, he is much too proud to own other, men. I don't give a damn how scrubbed and perfumed he may be, a slaveowner is subhuman.

"But this does not mean that I'll cut my throat when I run into it, or I would not have lived through my first century. For there is another bad thing about slavery, Ira; it is impossible to free slaves, they have to free themselves."

Lazarus scowled. "You've got me preaching again and about matters I can't possibly prove. Once I got my hands on my ship, I had it fumigated and checked it over myself and had it loaded with items I thought I could sell and had food and water taken on for the human cargo it had been refitted for, and sent the captain and crew on a week's leave, and notified the Protector of Servants-the state slave factor, that is-that we would load as soon as the skipper and purser were back.

"Then I took my family on a holiday inspection of the ship. Somehow the Protector of Servants was suspicious; he insisted on touring the ship with us. So we had to take him along when we took off from there, very suddenly, shortly after my family was aboard. Right out of that system and never went back. But before we put down on a civilized planet, me and. my boys-two almost grown by then-removed any sign that she had ever been a slaver, even though it mean jettisoning stuff I could have sold."

"What about the Protector of Servants?" I asked. "Wasn't he some trouble to you?"

"Wondered if you would notice that. I spaced the bastard! Alive. He went thataway, eyes popped out and peeing blood. What did you expect me to do? Kiss him?"

Once they reached the privacy of a transport Galahad said to Ishtar, "Were you serious in your proposal to the Senior? To have progeny by him?"

"How could I be joking?-in the presence of two witnesses, one of them the Chairman Pro Tem himself."

"I didn't see how you could be. But why, Ishtar?"

"Because I'm a sentimental atavist!"

"Do you have to snap at me?"

She put an arm around his shoulders, took his hand with her free hand. "I'm sorry, dear. It has been a long day and not much sleep last night, sweet as it was. I'm worried about several things-and the subject you brought up is not one I can be unemotional about."

"I should not have asked. An invasion of privacy-I don't know what's got into me. Shall we wipe the matter? Please?"

"Dear, dear! I do know what got into me...and that's part of why I am so unprofessionally emotional. Let me put it this way: If you were female, wouldn't you jump at a chance to make such a proposal? To him?"

"I'm not female."

"I know you're not, you're delightfully male. But try for a moment to be as logical as a female. Try!"

"Males are not necessarily illogical; that's a female myth."

"Sorry. I must take a tranquilizer the minute we are home-something I haven't needed in years. But do try to think about it as if you were female. Please? Twenty seconds."

"I don't need twenty seconds." He lifted her hand, kissed it. "If I were female, I would jump at the chance, too. The best proved genetic pattern one can offer a child? Of course."

"Not that at all!"

He blinked. "Perhaps I don't know what you mean by logic."

"Uh...does it matter? Since we arrived at the same answer?" The car swerved and stopped in a loading pocket; she stood up. "So let's wipe it. We're home, dear."

"You are. I'm not. I think-"

"Men don't think."

"I think you need a night's rest, Ishtar."

"You sealed this onto me; now you'll have to undress me."

"So? Then you'll insist on feeding me and you won't get that long night of sleep after all. Besides, you can peel it over your head, just the way I did it for you at decontam."

She sighed. "Galahad-if I picked the right name for you-do I have to offer you a cohabitation contract merely because I might invite you to stay overnight again? It's likely that neither of us will get any sleep tonight."

"That's what I was saying."

"Not quite. Because we may work all night. Even if you choose to spend three minutes to our mutual pleasure."

"'Three minutes'? I wasn't that hasty even the first time."

"Well- Five minutes?'

"Am I offered twenty minutes-plus an apology?'

"Men! Thirty minutes, darling, and no apology."

"Accepted." He stood up.

"Five of which you've wasted arguing about it. So come along-exasperating darling."

He followed her out into her foyer. "What's this about 'work all night'?"

"And tomorrow, too. I'll know when I check what's in my phone. If there's nothing, I'll have to call the Chairman Pro Tem, much as I hate to. I've got to look over this rooftop cabin or whatever it is, and see, what arrangements can be made to take care of him there. Then both of us will move him; I can't delegate that. Then-"

"Ishtar! Are you going to agree to that? Nonsterile habitat, no emergency equipment, and so forth?"

"Darling...you are impressed by my rank; Mr. Weatheral is not. And the Senior isn't even impressed by Mr. Weatheral's authority; the Senior is the Senior. I kept hoping that Mr. Chairman Pro Tem would find some way to wheedle him into postponing such a move. But he did not. So now I have two choices: Do it his way-or withdraw completely. As the Director did. Which I won't do. Which leaves me no choice. So tonight I'll inspect his new quarters and see what can be done between now and tomorrow midmorning. Even though it's hopeless to make such a place sterile, perhaps it can be made more nearly suitable before he sees it."

"And emergency equipment, don't forget that, Ishtar."

"As if I would, stupid darling. Now help me out of this damned thing-I mean 'this pretty dress you designed for me and which the Senior clearly liked.' Please?"