The Emperor got a sad look on his face.  "My dear friend," he began, "one of my aides brought me an old history book.  It said that at one time your people had done a very terrible thing.  It described the punishment.  I did not think the people of The Republics could be that cruel!  Tell me that this was something written by some person trying to discredit The Children Of The Lords!  It could not be true!"         The Speaker smiled.  "It most certainly IS true!"  he answered.  "My line can be traced back to the people involved in it.  One of my Ancestors was among the children given to those who had been sterilized, to raise.  He did quite well, and, his descendants have done quite well.  We'd better get up to the observatory!  Everybody else is already there."
     They hurried up and The First Speaker took the podium.  "Well!  As you can see by the countdown clock, we've only got a couple of minutes!  If anybody doesn't know what's happening I'll explain it to them.  Out there in the darkness is a huge mass with a gravity of a thousand solars.  A hundred black holes were mined to get the material to make that structure.  It is a focusing device.  Below us near the center of the galaxy, ten power stations are drawing power from the black hole there.  The first beams from those stations has already been launched and when that countdown clock hits zero it will reach the focal point.  One by one the nine other beams will join it.  When the tenth beam hits the focal point will have enough energy to begin transmitting the hyper beam.  It will shoot over the top of the galaxy and in twenty years reach our nearest neighbor. 
     Waiting at the further edge of the galaxy is the planet ship Northern Star, which has been especially designed to be propelled by the beam, and carried along with it to the far unknown.  Its crew is made up of individuals from many of the races of this galaxy.  When that ship reaches its destination it will build a focal point there, launch a beam, and send a ship back here.  That will probably take them approximately twenty years.  So we will not know for sure if we have succeeded for nearly sixty years!  Many of us probably won't be alive when that ship returns, but our children will be, and they will be waiting to welcome the travelers, and to find out what they have found. 
      Of course we will not wait. Ten years from now we'll launch another ship, and ten years after that, another!  And hopefully, in time, we will have a steady stream of ships going back and forth from galaxy to galaxy!  Hopefully, in time, we can increase our speed  The clock has hit zero!  There it is!  There's the first beam!"
     An officer ran in.  "Sir!"  he cried, "There's a ship, a very large one, heading for the focal point!  We've tried to warn them away.  They're in the path of the third beam, but they won't answer our signal!"
     All present saw the second beam arrive. 
     "Get them out of there!"  The Speaker cried.
     There was a horrendous flash.  "Too late!" someone cried. 
      "Check on that!"  The Speaker told the officer.  "Find out if there was any damage."
     One by one the other beams arrived.  The officer returned.
     "Apparently, sir," he announced, "the ship was carrying a great amount of dense matter.  We believe they were trying to unbalance the focal point and cause it to collapse!  The energy beam, however, totally vaporized them!  The heavy matter has been sucked into the focal point, and we're not sure what's going to happen!"
     "Well, we'll know in a moment!" The First Speaker announced, "Because the final beam should be coming any second, and the hyper beam should activate a moment after that." 
     The tenth  beam entered the focal point.  For a few moments nothing seemed to happen, then there was a tremendous flash and the hyper beam activated.  The great world ship rocked as the shock wave hit it, but then stabilized.