transmitter and an exploring party to the next nearest galaxy and pick out a planet there to start on. Ades isn't ideal."

"No," agreed the man with the bearskin hat. "It's too cold, and we're overcrowded. There are twenty million of us and more keep coming out of the transmitter every day. The Galaxy seems to be combing out its brains and sending them all here. We're short of minerals, though—metals, especially. So we'll pick some good sound planets to start on over in the second galaxy. Hm! Come to the communicator and we'll talk to the other men we need to reach."

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 of 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 

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