"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.