cup onto the desk and turned to the elevator, while
Flannery hunted through the memoranda. As he expected, he found a
recent one announcing Var's death. He rubbed his arms together as he
read it, but there was no new information in it.

Then, reluctantly, he picked up his phone and started to call. Scanning
for information, just as another bundle of memos came through a small
door in the panel. At the sight of the top photo, he put the phone back
on its cradle. His face tautened and his arms lay limp as he read
through it.

The picture was that of one of the half-disk Allr ships. The rumors of
the strange ship were true enough. One of the Allr races had crossed
the gulf between the two expanding cultures, and had touched several
worlds briefly, to land in the biggest city on Ptek, the trading center
for a whole sector. It had been there two days already, before being
reported to Earth!

To make matters worse, it had come because its home world had been
visited by a foreign ship--from the description, apparently from
Sugfarth; there was no longer any chance of cutting off the news, since
it would be circulating busily through both cultures. And with it must
be going a thousand wild schemes by trading adventurers for
exploration!

He'd expected it to happen some day, maybe in fifty years, after he was
out of the office. By then enough of the worlds should have reached
maturity to offer some hope of peaceful interpenetration. But now--

Victory, he thought bitterly. A small victory, and then this. Or maybe
two small victories, if O'Neill worked out as well on Throm as he
seemed to be doing, and if he realized he'd never be satisfied until he
could return to Earth to face the problems he now knew existed.
Flannery had almost hoped that it would be O'Neill who would handle the
problem of cultural interpenetration. The man had ability.

But all that was in the past now, along with all the other victories.
And in the present, as always, there were larger and larger problems,
while full maturity lay forever a little farther on.

Then he smiled slowly at himself. There were problems behind him,
too--ones whose solutions made these problems possible. And there would
always be victory enough.

What was victory, after all, but the chance to face bigger and bigger
problems without fear?

Flannery picked up the phone, and his arms were no longer tired.

THE END

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Victory,