Thus went the Lady Loala, most beautiful and noblest of all Daan Overlords, to an age-long sleep. Nor was she the only Daan to seek the frozen slumber of methioprane. When centuries hence she wakened, it would be in a strangely new and—Stephen Duane hoped—a better world. But amidst its strangeness she would find herself surrounded by at least a handful of warriors, courtiers, and friends from this present era.
For not with complete complaisance did all the Daans accept defeat at the hands of their erstwhile slaves. Some there were, staunch fighting men, who—though they fought in the cause of decadent empire—utterly refused to surrender. Their stubborn resistance found humane ending beneath the breath of the new anesthetic weapon.
And even when all active opposition had been quelled, and a cringing Supreme Council had accepted every one of Stephen Duane's demands, there were a few proud nobles who preferred oblivion to the "ignominy and disgrace" of living under a new interplanetary order under which—as Duane's charter plainly set forth—henceforth Earth was to govern itself and pay no fealty to Daan, earthmen and Daans were to meet in future commerce and council not as Overlords and slaves, but as equals.
To those who could not swallow their pride for the betterment of both races, Duane granted the boon they asked, hoping that by the time they wakened from their slumbers, two brave new worlds would have proven the justice of Earth's liberation.
Other matters of state were arranged before the earthlings finally sought the ship which was to carry them back to their native planet.
All human slaves were freed; their owners pledged to compensate them for years spent in penniless toil. Promise of the Daan Scientific Council was exacted that this society would lend its aid to the renascent Earth empire, assisting the backward planet in rehabilitating its lost knowledge and culture.
Ambassadorships were arranged, and the groundwork for future trade treaties laid. Then, that Earth might have some measure of self defense whilst its citizens engaged in what must surely be decades—perhaps centuries—of reconstruction, the Daan armada was split into two parts.
One half of this magnificent fleet, manned by erstwhile slaves under Daan instructors, was henceforth to be Earth's property. But, fairly, Duane did not simply seize these ships ... though they would have been a small payment for the years of subjugation under which earthlings had labored. A fair valuation was set, and for the space-navy Earth's new government promised to pay in commercial products needed by the Venusians.