Chapter IV: Part TWO: The Manless Worlds (2)

But one man did come up with a plausible device. He proposed a shielding paint containing crystals of the hormone to which the fighting-beams were tuned. The crystalline material should absorb the deadly frequencies, so they could not pass on to murder men.

It would have been simple enough to synthesize any desired organic substance, but Kim pointed out grimly that the shield would be made useless by changing the tuning of the beams. Other men devised horrific and generally impractical weapons.

But again, one man came up with a robot ship idea, a ship which could be fought without humans on board and controlled even at interstellar distances. Radio signals at the speed of light would be fantastically too slow.

He proposed miniature matter-transmitters automatically shuttling a magnetic element between ship and planet-station and back to the ship again, the solid object conveying all the information to be had from the ship's instruments to the planet-station, and relaying commands to the ship's controls. The trick could have been made to work, and it would be vastly faster than any radiation-beam. But there was no time to manufacture them.

Actually, only four days after the return of the partly dismantled _Starshine_ from the farther side of nowhere, Kim took off again from Ades with fifty other ships following him. There were twenty other similar squadrons ready to take space in days more.

But for a first operation he insisted on a small force to gain experience without too much risk. At transmitter-speeds there could be no such thing as cruising in fleet formation, nor of arriving at any destination in a unit. Guerilla warfare was inevitable.

The navy of the criminals of Ades, though, went swirling up through the atmosphere of that cold planet like a column of voyaging wild geese. It broke through the upper atmosphere and there were all the suns of the Galaxy shining coldly on every hand.

The ships headed first for Khiv Five, lining up for it with such precision as the separate astrogators--hurriedly trained by Kim--could manage. It was a brave small company of tiny ships, forging through space away from the sunlit little world behind them. The light of the local sun was bright upon their hulls.

Glinting reflections of many-colored stars shimmered on their shadowed sides. They drove on and on, on planetary drive, seemingly motionless in space. Then the _Starshine_ winked out of existence. By ones and twos and half-dozens, the others vanished from space.

It was the transmitter-drive, of course. The repaired _Starshine_ vanished from space near Ades because it went away from Ades at such speed that no light could possibly be reflected from it. It reappeared in space within the solar system of Khiv because it slowed enough to be visible.

But it seemed utterly alone. Yet presently an alarm-gong rang, and there was one of its sister-ships a bare ten thousand miles away. The rest were scattered over parsecs.

Kim drove for the banded planet on which dead men still lay unburied. His fleet was to rendezvous above its summer pole, as shown by the size of the ice-cap. There had been two guard-ships circling Khiv Five to keep account of the development of grief into despair. Dona had robbed one of them while its crew was held helpless by projectors of the Disciplinary Circuit field.

A second had been on the way to its aid when the _Starshine_ reeled away with the last morsel of energy in its equalizing-batteries. With fifty small ships, swift as gadflies though without a single weapon. Kim hoped to try out the tactics planned for his fleet, and perhaps to capture one or both of the giants.

He picked up a third member of his force on the way to the planet and the three drove on in company. Detectors indicated two others at extreme range. But as the three hovered over the polar cap of Khiv Five, others came from every direction.

Then a wheezing voice bellowed out of the newly-installed space-radio in the _Starshine's_ control-room. It was the voice of the Mayor of Steadheim, grandly captaining a tiny ship with his four tall sons for crew.

"_Kim Rendell!_" he bellowed. "_Kim Rendell! Enemy ships in sight! We're closing with them and be da_--"

His voice stopped--utterly.

Kim snapped orders and his squadron came swarming after him. The direction of the message was clear. It had come from a point a bare two thousand miles above the surface of Khiv Five and with coördinates which made its location easy.

It was too close for the use of transmitter-drive, of course. Even overdrive at two hundred light-speeds was out of the question. On normal drive the little ships--bare specks in space--spread out and out. Their battle tactics had been agreed upon. They wove and darted erratically.

They had projectors of the Disciplinary Circuit field, which would paralyze any man they struck with sufficient intensity. But that was all--for the good and sufficient reason that such fields could be tested upon grimly resolute volunteers and adjusted to the utmost of efficiency.

On the prison world of Ades, to which criminals were sent from all over the Galaxy, there was no legal murder. Killing fighting-beams could not be calibrated. There were no available victims.

The detectors picked up a single considerable mass. Electron telescopes focussed upon it. Kim's lips tensed. He saw a giant war-craft, squat and ungainly--with no air-resistance in space there is no point in streamlining a space-ship--and with the look of a mass of crammed generators of deadly beams.

It turned slowly in its flight. It was not one space-ship, but two--two giant ships grappled together. It turned further and there was a shimmering, unsubstantial tiny shape clutched to one....

"The dickens!" said Kim bitterly. He called into the space-phones; "Kim Rendell speaking! Don't attack! Those ships aren't driving, they're falling! They'll smash on Khiv Five and we can't do anything about it. Keep at least fifty miles away!"

A wheezing voice said furiously from the communicator.

"They tricked me! I went for 'em, and the transmitter-drive went on. I'll get 'em this time!"

Kim barked at the Mayor of Steadheim, even as in the field of the electron telescope he saw a tiny mote of a space-ship charge valorously at the monsters. It plunged toward them--and vanished.

Dona spoke breathlessly.

"But what happened, Kim?"

"This," said Kim bitterly, "is the end of the battle we fought with one of those ships a week ago. We put out a decoy and that ship grappled it. A Disciplinary Circuit generator went on and paralyzed its crew.

"You remember that we went up to it and you went on board. I turned off its generator from a distance and held the crew paralyzed with beams from the _Starshine_. There was another ship coming when you got off and we got away to the other side of beyond."

"Yes, but--"

"We vanished," said Kim. "The other enemy ship came up. Its skipper must have decided to go on board the first for a conference, or perhaps to inspect the decoy. It grappled to the first--and the magnetic surge turned on the disciplinary field again in the gadget in the decoy!

"Every man in both ships were paralyzed all over again! Both ships were drifting with power off! They've been falling toward Khiv Five! Every man of both crews must be dead by now, but the field's still on and it will stay on! They'll crash!"

"But can't we do anything?" demanded Dona anxiously. "I know you want a ship."

"It would be handy to have those beams modified so we could paralyze a planet from a distance," said Kim grimly, "but these ships are gone."

"I could go on board again," said Dona.

"No! They'll hit atmosphere in minutes now. And even if we could cut off the paralyzing field and get to the control-room nobody could pull an unfamiliar ship out of that fall. I wouldn't let you try it anyhow. They're falling fast. Miles a second. They'll hit with the speed of a meteor!"

"But try, Kim!"

For answer he pulled her away from the electron telescope and pointed through the forward vision-port. The falling ships had seemed almost within reach on the electron-telescope screen. But through the vision-port one could see the whole vast bulk of Khiv Five.

Two thirds of it glowed brightly in sunlight, but night had fallen directly below. The falling ships were the barest specks the eye could possibly detect--too far for hope of overhauling on planetary drive, too close to risk any other. Any speed that would overtake the derelicts would mean a crash against the planet's disk.

"I think," said Kim, "they'll cross the sunset line and fall in the night area."

They did. They vanished, as specks against the sunlit disk. Then, minutes later, a little red spark appeared where the bulk of the banded planet faded into absolute black. The spark held and grew in brightness.

"They've hit atmosphere," Kim told her. "They're compressing the air before them until it's incandescent. They're a meteoric fall."

The spark flared terribly, minute though it was from this distance. It curved downward as the air slowed its forward speed. It was an infinitesimal comet, trailing a long tail of fire behind it. It swooped downward in a gracefully downward-curving arc. It crashed.

"Which," said Kim coldly in the _Starshine's_ control-room, "means that two Sinabian warships are destroyed without cost to us. It's a victory. But it's very, very bad luck for us. With those two ships and transmitter-drive we could end the war in one day."

7

_Ready for Action_

Indignantly the Mayor of Steadheim bellowed from the space-phone speaker and Kim answered him patiently.

"The decoy still had a Disciplinary-Circuit field on," he explained for the tenth time. "You know about it! When you tried to go galumphing in, the field grabbed you and paralyzed you. When your muscles went iron hard, the relay on your wrist--you wear it to protect you from the fighter-beams--threw your ship into transmitter-speed travel.

"So you were somewhere else. When you came back you charged in again and the same thing happened. The relay protected you against our field as well as the enemy fighter-beams. That's all."

The mayor wheezed and sputtered furiously. It was plain that he had meant to distinguish himself and his four sons by magnificent bravery.

"There's something that needs to be done," said Kim. "Those two ships are smashed but they hadn't time to melt. There'll be hafnium in the wreckage, anyhow--and metal is scarce on Ades. See what you can salvage and get it to Ades. It's important war work. Ask for other ships to volunteer to help you."

The Mayor of Steadheim roared indignantly--and then consented like a lamb. In the space-navy of Ades there would not yet be anything like iron discipline. Kim led his forces as a feudal baron might have led a motley assemblage of knights and men-at-arms in ancient days. He led by virtue of prestige and experience. He could not command.

The fleet grew minute by minute as lost ships came in. And Kim worked out a new plan of battle to meet the fact that he could not hope to appear over Sinab with gigantic generators able to pour out Disciplinary-Circuit beams over the whole planet.

He explained the plan painstakingly to his followers and presently set a course for Sinab. A surprising number of ships volunteered to go to ground on Khiv Five with the Mayor of Steadheim to save what could be retrieved of the shattered two warships.

No more than thirty little craft of Ades pointed their noses toward Sinab. They went speeding toward it in a close-knit group, matching courses to almost microscopic accuracy and keeping their speed identical to a hair in hopes of arriving nearly in one group.

"So we'll try it again," said Kim into the space-phone. "Here we go!"

He pressed the transmitter-drive button and all the universe danced a momentary saraband--and far off to the left the giant sun Sinab glowed fiercely.

Five of the little ships from Ades were within detector-range. But there were four monstrous moving masses which by their motion and velocity were space-ships rising from the planet and setting out upon some errand of the murder-empire. The same thought must have come instantly to those upon each of the little ships. They charged.

There had been no war in space for five thousand years. The last space-battle was that of Canis Major, when forty thousand warships plunged toward each other with their fighting-beams stabbing out savagely, aimed and controlled by every device that human ingenuity could contrive.

That battle had ended wars for all time, the Galaxy believed, because there was no survivor on either side. In seconds every combatant ship was merely a mass of insensate metal, which fought on in a blind futility.

The fighting-beams killed in thousandths of seconds. The robot gunners aimed with absolute precision. The two fleets joined battle and the robots fixed their targets and every ship became a coffin in which all living things were living no longer, which yet fought on with beams which could do no further harm.

With every man in both fleets dead the warships raged through emptiness, pouring out destruction from their unmanned projectors. It was a hundred years before the last war-craft, its fuel gone and its crew mere dust, was captured and destroyed. But there had been no space-fight since--until now.

And this one was strangeness itself. Four huge, squat ships of war rose steadily from the planet Sinab Two. They were doubtless bound on a mission of massacre. The Empire of Sinab gave no warning of its purpose. It did not permit the option of submission.

Its ships headed heavily out into space, crammed with generators of the murder-frequency. They had no inkling of any ships other than those of their own empire as being in existence anywhere.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a slim and slender space-craft winked into being--a member of Kim's squadron, just arrived. Within a fraction of an instant it was plunging furiously for the Sinabian monster.

The _Starshine_ also flung itself into head-long attack, though it was unarmed save for projectors of a field that would not kill anyone. The other ships--and more, as they appeared--darted valorously for the giants.

Meteor-repellers lashed out automatically. Scanners had detected the newcomers and instantly flung repeller-beams to thrust them aside. They had no effect. Meteor-repellers handle inert mass but, by the nature of its action, an interplanetary drive neutralizes their effect.

The small ships flashed on.

Kim found himself grinning sardonically. There would be alarms ringing frantically in the enemy ships and the officers would be paralyzed with astonishment at the sudden appearance and instant attack by the space-craft which could not--to Sinabian knowledge--exist.

Four ships plunged upon one monster. Three dashed at another. Eight little motes streaked for a third and the fourth seemed surrounded by deadly mites of space-ships, flashing toward it with every indication of vengeful resolution.

The attacks were sudden, unexpected, and impossible. There was no time to put the murder-beams into operation. They took priceless seconds to warm up.

In stark panic the control-room officer of the ship at which the _Starshine_ drove jammed his ship into overdrive travel. The Sinabian flashed into flight at two hundred times the speed of light. It fled into untraceable retreat, stressed space folded about it.

Kim spoke comfortably into the space-phone:

"Everything's fine! If the others do the same...."

A second giant fled in the same fashion. The small ships of Ades were appearing on every hand and plunging toward their enemies. A third huge ship made a crazy, irresolute half-turn and also took the only possible course by darting away from its home planet on overdrive. Then the fourth!

"They'd no time to give an alarm," said Kim crisply. "Into atmosphere now and we do our stuff!"

The tiny craft plunged toward the planet below them. It swelled in the _Starshine's_ forward vision-ports. It filled all the firmament. Kim changed course and aimed for the limb of the planet. The ship went down and down.

A faint trembling went through all the fabric of the ship. It had touched atmosphere. There was a monstrous metropolis ahead and below. Kim touched a control. A little thing went tumbling down and down. He veered out into space again.

He watched by electron telescope. Like tiny insects, the fleet of Ades flashed over the surface of the planet. They seemed to have no purpose. They seemed to accomplish nothing. They darted here and there and fled for open space again, without ever touching more than the outermost reaches of the planet's atmosphere.

But it took time. They were just beginning to stream up into emptiness again when the first of the giant warships flashed back into view. This time it was ready for action.

Its beam-projectors flared thin streams of ions that were visible even in empty space. The ships of Ades plunged for it in masses. The fighting-beams flared terribly.

And the little ships vanished. Diving for it, plunging for it, raging toward it with every appearance of deadly assault, they flicked into transmitter-drive when the deadly beams touched them. Because the crews of every one were fitted with the wristlets and the relays which flung them into infinite speed when the fighting-beams struck.

In seconds, when the second and third and fourth Sinabian warships came back from the void prepared for battle, they found all of space about their home planet empty. They ragingly reported their encounter to headquarters.

Headquarters did not reply. The big ships went recklessly, alarmedly, down to ground to see what had happened. They feared annihilation had struck Sinab Two.

But it hadn't. The fleet of Ades had bombed the enemy planet, to be sure, but in a quite unprecedented fashion. They had simply dropped small round cases containing apparatus which was very easily made and to which not even the most conscientious of the exiles on Ades could object.

They were tiny broadcasting units, very much like one Kim had put in a decoy ship, which gave off the neuronic frequencies of the disciplinary circuit, tuned to men. The cases were seamless spheres, made of an alloy that could only be formed by powder metallurgy, and could not be melted or pierced at all.

It was the hardest substance developed in thirty thousand years of civilization. And at least one of those cases had been dropped on every large city of Sinab Two, and when they struck they began to broadcast.

8

_Pitched Battle_

Every man in every city of the capital planet of the empire was instantly struck motionless. From the gross and corpulent emperor himself down to the least-considered scoundrel of each city's slums, every man felt his every muscle go terribly and impossibly rigid. Every man was helpless and convulsed. And the women were unaffected.

On Sinab Two, which was the capital of a civilization which considered women inferior animals, the women had not been encouraged to be intelligent. For a long time they were merely bewildered. They were afraid to try to do anything to assist their men.

Those with small boy-children doubtless were the first to dare to use their brains. It was unquestionably the mother of a small boy gone terribly motionless who desperately set out in search of help.

She reasoned fearfully that, since her own city was full of agonized statues which were men, perhaps in another city there might be aid. She tremblingly took a land-car and desperately essayed to convey her son to where something might be done for him.

And she found that, in the open space beyond the city, he recovered from immobility to a mere howling discomfort. As the city was left farther behind he became increasingly less unhappy and at last was perfectly normal.

But it must have been hours before that discovery became fully known, so that mothers took their boy-children beyond the range of the small cases dropped from the skies. And then wives dutifully loaded their helpless husbands upon land-cars or into freight-conveyors and so got them out to where they could rage in unbridled fury.

The emperor and his court were probably last of all to be released from the effects of the disciplinary-circuit broadcasts by mere distance. The Empire was reduced to chaos. For fifty miles about every bomb it was impossible for any man to move a muscle.

For seventy-five it was torment.

No man could go within a hundred miles of any of the small objects dropped from the _Starshine_ and her sister-ships without experiencing active discomfort.

Obviously, the cities housed the machinery of government and the matter-transmitters by which the Empire communicated with its subject worlds and the food-synthesizers and the shelters in which men were accustomed to live and the baths and lecture-halls and amusement-centers in which they diverted themselves.

Men were barred from such places absolutely. They could not govern nor read nor have food or drink or bathe or even sleep upon comfortable soft couches. For the very means of living they were dependent upon the favor of women--because women were free to go anywhere and do anything, while men had to stay in the open fields like cattle.

The foundation of the civilization of Greater Sinab was shattered because women abruptly ceased to be merely inferior animals. The defenses of that one planet were non-existent, and even the four ships just taken off went down recklessly to the seemingly unharmed cities--to land with monstrous crashes and every man in them helpless. The ships were out of action for as long as the broadcast should continue.

But the fleet of Ades rendezvoused at Ades, and again put out into space. They divided now and attacked the subjugated planets. They had no weapons save the devices which every government in the Galaxy used.

It was as if they fought a war with the night-sticks of policemen. But the disciplinary circuit which made governments absolute, by the most trivial of modifications became a device by which men were barred from cities, and therefore from government. All government ceased.

Active warfare by the Empire of Sinab became impossible. Space-yards, armories, space-ships grounded and space-ships as they landed from the void--every facility for war or rule in an empire of twenty planets became useless without the killing of a single man and without the least hope of resistance.

Only--a long while since, a squadron of Sinabian warships had headed out for Ades as a part of the program of expansion of the Empire. It had lifted from Sinab Two--then the thriving, comfortable capital of the Empire--and gone into overdrive on its mission.

The distance to be covered was something like thirty light-years. Overdrive gave a speed two hundred times that of light, which was very high speed indeed, and had sufficed for the conquest of a galaxy, in the days when the human race was rising.

But even thirty light-years at that rate required six weeks of journeying in the stressed space of overdrive. During those six weeks, of course, there could be no communication with home base.

So the squadron bound for Ades had sped on all unknowing and unconscious, while Khiv Five was beamed and all its men killed and while the _Starshine_ had essayed a return journey from the Second Galaxy and then sped crazily to universes beyond men's imagining and returned, and while the midget fleet of Ades wrecked the Empire in whose service the travelers set out to do murder.

The journeying squadron--every ship wrapped in the utter unapproachability of faster-than-light travel--was oblivious to all that had occurred. Its separate ships came out of overdrive some forty million miles from the solitary planet Ades, lonesomely circling its remote small sun.

The warships of Sinab had an easier task in keeping together on overdrive than ships of the _Starshine_ class on transmitter-drive, but even so they went back to normal space forty million miles from their destination--two seconds' journey on overdrive--to group and take final counsel.

Kim Rendell in the _Starshine_ flashed back from the last of the twenty planets of Sinab as six monster ships emerged from seeming nothingness. The _Starshine's_ detectors flicked over to the "_Danger_" signal-strength.

Alarm-gongs clanged violently. The little ship hurtled past a monster at a bare two-hundred miles distance, and there was another giant a thousand miles off, and two others and fifth and sixth....

The six ships drew together into battle formation. Their detectors, too, showed the _Starshine_. More, as other midgets flicked into being, returning from their raid upon the Empire, they also registered upon the detector-screens of the battle-fleet.

The fighter-beams of the ships flared into deadliness. They were astounded, no doubt, by the existence of other space-craft than those of Sinab. But as the little ships flung at them furiously, the fighting-beams raged among them.

Small, agile craft vanished utterly as the death-beams hit--thrown into transmitter-drive before their crews could die. But the Sinabians could not know that. They drove on. Grandly. Ruthlessly. This planet alone possessed space-craft and offered resistance.

It had appeared only normal that all the men on Ades should die. Now it became essential. The murder-fleet destroyed--apparently--the tiny things which flung themselves recklessly and went on splendidly to bathe the little planet in death.

The midgets performed prodigies of valor. They flung themselves at the giants, with the small hard objects that had destroyed an empire held loosely to the outside of their hulls.

When the death-beams struck and they vanished, the small hard objects went hurtling on.

They could have been missiles. They traveled at miles per second. But meteor-repellers flung them contemptuously aside, once they were no longer parts of space-craft with drive in action.

The little ships tried to ram, and that was impossible. They could do nothing but make threatening dashes. And the giants went on toward Ades.

From forty million miles to thirty millions the enemy squadron drove on with its tiny antagonists darting despairingly about it. At thirty millions, Kim commanded his followers to flee ahead to Ades, give warning, and take on board what refugees they could.

But there were nineteen million souls on Ades--at most a million had crowded through to Terranova in the Second Galaxy--and they could do next to nothing.

At twenty millions of miles, some of the midgets were back with cases of chemical explosive. They strewed them in the paths of the juggernaut ships. With no velocity of their own--almost stationary in space--someone had thought they might not activate the Sinabian repellers.

But that thought was futile. The repeller-beams stabbed at them with the force of collisions. The chemical explosives flashed luridly in emptiness and made swift expanding clouds of vapor, of the tenuity of comets' tails. The enemy ships came on.

At ten million miles two unmanned ships, guided by remote control, flashed furiously toward the leading war-craft. They, at least, should be able to ram.

Repeller-beams which focused upon them were neutralized by the space-torpedoes' drives. They drove in frenziedly. But as they drew closer the power of the repeller-beams rose to incredible heights and overwhelmed the power of the little ships' engines and shorted the field-generating coils and blew out the motors--and the guided missiles were hurled away, broken hulks.

The fleet reached a mere five million miles from the planet Ades. Its separate members had come to realize their invincibility against all the assaults that could be made against them by the defending forces--unexpected as they were--of this small world.

The fleet divided, to take up appropriate stations above the planet and direct their projectors of annihilation downward. They would wipe out every living male upon the planet's surface. They would do it coldly, remorselessly, without emotion.

Presently the planet would become part of an empire which, in fact, had ceased to function. The action of the fleet would not only be horrible--it would be futile. But its personnel could not know that.

The giant ships took position and began to descend.

Odd little blue-white glows appeared in the atmosphere far below. They seemed quite useless, those blue-white glows. The only effect that could at once be ascribed to them was the sudden vanishing of a dozen little ships preparing to make, for the hundredth time, despairing dashes at the monsters. Those little ships winked out of existence--gone into transmitter-drive.

And then the big ships wavered in their flight. Automatic controls seemed to take hold. They checked in their descent, and presently were motionless....

A roar of triumph came to Kim Rendell's ears from the space-phone speaker in the _Starshine's_ control-room. The Mayor of Steadheim bellowed in exultation.

"We got 'em, by Space! We _got_ 'em!"

"Something's happened to them," said Kim. "What?"

"I'm sending up a couple of shiploads of women," rumbled the Mayor of Steadheim zestfully. "Women from Khiv Five. They'll take over! Remember you had us go to ground to salvage the two ships that crashed there?

"They bounced when they landed. They shook themselves apart and spilled themselves in little pieces instead of smashing to powder. We picked up half a dozen projectors that could be repaired--all neatly tuned to kill men and leave women unharmed.

"We brought 'em back to Ades and mounted 'em--brought 'em here with wives for my four sons and a promise of vengeance for the other women whose men were murdered. We just gave these devils a dose of the medicine they had for us!

"Those ships are coffins, Kim Rendell! Every man in the crews is dead! But no man can go aboard until their beams are cut off! I'll send up the women from Khiv Five to board 'em. They'll attend to things! If any man's alive they'll slit his throat for him!"

9

_Homecoming_

A considerable time later, Kim Rendell eased the _Starshine_ down through the light of the two Terranovan moons to the matted lawn outside his homestead in the Second Galaxy. A figure started up from the terrace and hurried down to greet him as he opened the exit-port and helped Dona to the ground.

"Who's this?" asked Kim, blinking in the darkness after the lighted interior of the _Starshine_. "Who--"

"It's me, Kim Rendell," said the Colony Organizer for Terranova. He sounded unhappy and full of forebodings, "We've been doing all we can to take care of the crowds who came through the matter-transmitter, but it was a difficult task--a difficult task!

"Now the crowd of new colonists has dropped to a bare trickle. Every one has a different story. I was told, though, that you were coming back in the _Starshine_ and could advise me. I need your advice, Kim Rendell! The situation may be terrible!"

Kim led the way to the terrace of his house.

"I wouldn't say it will be terrible," he said cheerfully enough. "It's good to get back home. Dona--"

"I want to look inside," said Dona firmly.

She went within, to satisfy the instinct of every woman who has been away from home to examine all her dwelling jealously on her return. Kim stretched himself out in a chair.

The stars--unnamed, unexplored, and infinitely promising--of all the Second Galaxy twinkled overhead. Terranova's two moons floated serenely across the sky, and the strange soft scents of the night came to his nostrils. Kim sniffed luxuriously.

"Ah, this is good!" he said zestfully.

"But what's happened?" demanded the Colony Organizer anxiously. "In three weeks we had four hundred thousand new arrivals through the transmitter. Most of them were children and boys. Then the flood stopped--like that! What are we to do about them? Did you get fuel for your ship? I understand the danger from Sinab is over, but we find it hard to get information from Ades. Everyone there--"

"Everyone there is busy," said Kim comfortably. "You see, we smashed the Empire without killing more than a very few men. On Sinab Two where the Empire was started, we chased the men out of the cities and put them at the mercy of the women.

"So many men had emigrated to the planets whose men had been killed off, that there was a big disproportion even on Sinab. And the women were not pleased. They'd been badly treated too. We didn't approve of the men, though.

"We gave them their choice of emigrating to a brand-new world, with only such women as chose to go with them, or of being wiped out. They chose to emigrate. So half the technical men on Ades have been busy supervising their emigration."

"Not to here?" asked the Colony Organizer in alarm. "We can't feed ourselves, yet!"

"No, not to here," said Kim drily. "They went to a place we scouted accidentally in the _Starshine_. They're not likely to come back. I left a matter-receiver there, and when they've all gone through it--all the men from twenty planets, with what women want to go with them--we'll smash that receiver and they'll be on their own.

"They're quite a long way off. Three hundred billion light-years, more or less. They're not likely to come in contact with our descendants for several million years yet. By that time they'll either be civilized or else."

The Colony Organizer asked questions in a worried tone. Kim answered them.

"But twenty-one planets with no men on them," said the Organizer worriedly, "These women will all want to come here!"

"Not quite all. There were ten men on Ades for every woman. A lot of them will settle on the twenty planets where the proportion is reversed. A surprising lot will want to move on to the Second Galaxy, though."

"But--"

"We'll be ready for them," said Kim. "We've space-ships enough for exploration now. The Mayor of Steadheim wants a planet for each of his four sons to colonize. They picked up wives on Khiv Five and want to get away from the old chap and indulge in a little domesticity.

"And there'll be plenty of others." He added, "We've some big war-craft to bring over too, in case there's any dangerous animals or--entities here."

"But--" said the Colony Organizer again.

"We're sending ships through the First Galaxy, too," said Kim, "to do a little missionary work. After all, twenty-one planets are without men!

"So the _Starshine's_ sister-ships will drop down secretly on one planet after another to start whisperings that a man who's sent to Ades is a pretty lucky man. If he has courage and brains he's better off than living as a human sheep under kings or technarchs who'll clap the Disciplinary Circuit on him if he thinks for himself.

"There'll be more criminals and rebels than usual from now on. The flow of men who are not quite sheep will increase. With three hundred million planets to draw from and the way whispers pass from world to world, the adventurous spirits will start getting themselves sent to Ades.

"There'll be planets for them to move to and women to marry and a leaven of hardy souls to teach them that being a free man is pretty good fun. We won't make an empire of those twenty-one planets--just a refuge for every man with backbone in all the Galaxy."

The Colony Organizer looked worried.

"But there are Terranova and the Second Galaxy waiting to be explored and colonized. Maybe they'll be satisfied to stay there."

Kim laughed. When he ceased to laugh he chuckled.

"I'm here! I've got a wife. Do you suppose that any woman will want her husband to stay on one of those twenty-one planets for years to come? Where women outnumber men? Where--well--a man with a roving eye sees plenty of women about for his eyes to rove to?"

The Colony Organizer still worried, nevertheless, until Dona came out from the inside of the house. She had assured herself that everything was intact and her mind was at rest. She brought refreshments for Kim and their guest.

"I was just saying," said Kim, "that I thought there would still be plenty of people coming from Ades and the twenty-one planets to Terranova and to settle on the new worlds as they're opened up."

"Of course," said Dona. "I wouldn't live there! Any normal woman, when she has a husband, will want to move where he'll be safe!"

And she might have been referring to the holocausts on those planets caused by the death-beams of the dead Sinabian Empire. But even the Colony Organizer did not think so.