Except for the very small proportion of Undesirables and non-Citizens who would remain, it was intended to complete the evacuation of Earth in ten years…

“What happens to the people who are left?” Martin asked suddenly. But the screen remained blank except for the imagined images which came like the pictures seen in the flames of an old-time fire.

Many millions of Earth-people had passed the examinations and moved to the new world on trust, sight unseen-although to be fair, most of them came from areas where subsistence level conditions left them with very little to lose. Then there were the people who worried in case these first Citizens were not capable of looking after themselves, and they wanted to go along to organize things for them. The would-be organizers had a much harder time satisfying the examiners regarding their suitability for citizenship. They had to make it clear, by word and past deeds and sensor plate readings, that they were the type of person who had the ability and the need to care for other people, and not just the kind who wanted power.

Despite the early influx of the more simple and trusting Earth-people, the Federation saw to it that nobody went hungry or unsheltered. But for psychological reasons it wanted the new Citizens to become self-supporting as soon as possible-too much help from Federation technology could, at this early stage, set up an inferiority complex which might stunt future cultural and scientific development. So the appropriate public buildings, educational establishments, dwellings ranging from mud huts to skyscraper blocks, and whole factory complexes, were transferee! with the minimum of physical and emotional dislocation.