The conference lasted for a long time. There was enthusiasm, and there was reserve. The Starshine would carry a matter-transmitter to the next galaxy and open a way for migration of the criminals of Ades to a new island universe for conquest.
Kim would turn over the construction-records of the space-ship so that others could be built. He would give the details of the matter-transmitter alteration. No space-ships had been attempted by the inhabitants of Ades, because fighting-beams would soon have been mounted on useful planets, against them, and all useful planets contained only enemies.
"What do you want?" asked a figure in one vision-plate. "We don't do things for nothing, here, and we don't take things without paying for them, either."
"Dona and I want only a place to live and a people to live among who are free," Kim answered sharply.
"You've got that," the man in the bearskin hat said. "All right? We'll all call public meetings and confirm these arrangements?"
The heads of other cities nodded.
"We'll pass on the news to other cities at once," another man said. He was one of those who had nodded. "Everybody will wish to come in on it, of course. If not now, then later."
"Wait!" Kim said suddenly. "How about the planets around us? Are we going to leave them enslaved?"
"Nobody can free a slave," a whiskered man in a vision-plate said drily. "We could only release prisoners. In time we may have to take them over, I suppose, but on the planet I come from there aren't a dozen men who'd know how to be free if we emancipated them. They don't want to be free. They're satisfied as they are. If any of them want to be free, they'll be sent here, eventually."
"I am reluctant to desert them," Kim answered slowly.