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.

"Count, man," the man with the bearskin hat cried. "There are three hundred million inhabited planets! All of them but Ades are ruled by Disciplinary Circuits. If we set out to liberate them, it would take one thousand years, and there are only twenty millions of us. We'll designate just one of us to stay on each planet to teach the people to be free again. Otherwise we wouldn't do a tenth of the job and we'd destroy ourselves by scattering. Why, hang it all, we'd be tyrants! No! We go on and start on a new galaxy. That's a job worth doing. We'll keep a group of watchers here to receive the new ones who come here into exile and forward them. Some day, maybe, we'll come back and take over the old galaxy if it seems worth while. But we've a job to do. How many galaxies are there, anyhow, for us and our children and our children's children to take over?"

"It's a job that will never be finished," another voice said. "That's good!"

There were trees visible from the window of the house that had been offered by a citizen for Kim's and Dona's use. The sun went down beyond those trees, with a glowing of many colors in the foliage. Kim had never watched a sunset before except upon the towers and pinnacles of a city. He had never noted quite this sharp tang in the air, either, which he learned was the smell of 

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