rowding around us, as many as could jam in, in the main lounge of the
_Peenemuende_. Joe Kivelson and his wife. Dad and Julio and Mrs. Laden,
who was actually being cordial to Bish, and who had a bundle for us
that we weren't to open till we were in hyperspace. Lillian Arnaz, the
girl who was to take my place as star reporter. We were going to send
each other audiovisuals; advice from me on the job, and news from the
_Times_ from her. Glenn Murell, who had his office open by now and was
grumbling that there had been a man from Interstellar Import-Export
out on the _Cape Canaveral_, and if the competition got any stiffer
the price of tallow-wax would be forced up on him to a sol a pound.
And all the _Javelin_ hands who had been wrecked with us on Hermann
Reuch's Land, and the veterans of the Civil War, all but Oscar and
Cesario, who will be at the dock to meet us when we get to Terra.

I wonder what it'll be like, on a world where you go to bed every time
it gets dark and get up when it gets light, and can go outdoors all
the time. I wonder how I'll like college, and meeting people from all
over the Federation, and swapping tall stories about our home planets.

And I wonder what I'll learn. The long years ahead, I can't imagine
them now, will be spent on the _Times_, and I ought to learn things to
fit me for that. But I can't get rid of the idea about carniculture
growth of tallow-wax. We'll have to do something like that. The demand
for the stuff is growing, and we don't know how long it'll be before
the monsters are hunted out. We know how fast we're killing them, but
we don't know how many there are or how fast they breed. I'll talk to
Tom about that; maybe between us we can hit on something, or at least
lay a foundation for somebody else who will.

The crowd pushed out and off the ship, and the three of us were alone,
here in the lounge of the _Peenemuende_, where the story started and
where it ends. Bish says no story ends, ever. He's wrong. Stories die,
and nothing in the world is deader than a dead news story. But before
they do, they hatch a flock of little ones, and some of them grow into
bigger stories still. What happens after the ship lifts into the
darkness, with the pre-dawn glow in the east, will be another, a new,
story.

But to the story of how the hunters got an honest co-operative and
Fenris got an honest government, and Bish Ware got Anton Gerrit the
slaver, I can write

"The End."

*