They went out of the small building which was the center of government of the quite small city. There was nothing impressive about it, anywhere. It was not even systematically planned. Each citizen, it appeared, had built as he chose. Each seemed to dress as he pleased, too. To Kim and to Dona there was a startling novelty in the faces they saw about them. On Alphin III almost everybody had looked alike. At any rate their faces had worn the same expression of bovine contentment. On other planets contentment had not been the prevailing sentiment. On some, despair had seemed to be universal. But these people, these criminals, were individuals. Their manner was not the elaborate, cringing politeness of Alphin III. It was free and natural. The communicator-station was rough and ready. It was not a work of art, but a building put up by people who needed a building and built one for that purpose only. The vision-screens lighted up one by one and faces appeared, as variegated as the costumes beneath them. They had a common look for aliveness which was heartening to Kim. 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.