The Co-ordinator nodded and said, “Man adapts, Amschel. Have you studied the development of the United States in early history? During her first century and a half the need was for population to fill the vast lands wrested from the Amer-Inds. Families of eight, ten and twelve children were the common thing, and much larger ones were not unknown. And the generations crowded one against another. A girl worried about spinsterhood if she reached seventeen unwed. But in the next century? The frontier vanished, the driving need for population was gone. Not only were drastic immigration laws passed, but the family rapidly shrunk until by mid-Twentieth Century the usual consisted of two or three children, and even the childless family became increasingly common.”

Mayer frowned impatiently. “But still, a thousand years. There is always famine, war, disease…”

Plekhanov snorted patronizingly. “Forty to fifty generations, Amschel? Starting with a hundred colonists? Where are your mathematics?”

The Co-ordinator said, “The proof is there. We estimate that each of Rigel’s planets now supports a population of nearly one billion.”

“To be more exact”—Natt Roberts spoke up from the rear of the group—“some nine hundred million on Genoa, seven and a half on Texcoco.” His voice was as trim and neat as his physical appearance. However, it was information everyone present already possessed.

Mayer smiled wryly, “I wonder what the residents of each of these planets call their worlds. Hardly the same names we have arbitrarily bestowed.”

“Probably, each call theirs The World,” the Co-ordinator smiled. “After all, the basic language, in spite of a thousand years, is still undoubtedly Amer-English. However, I assume you are familiar with our method of naming. The most advanced culture on Rigel’s first planet is to be compared to the Italian cities during Europe’s feudalistic years. We have named that planet Genoa. The most advanced of the second planet is comparable to the Aztecs at the time of the Spanish conquest. We considered Tenochtitlan, but it seemed a tongue twister, so Texcoco, the sister city of the Aztecs, is the alternative.”