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."