ield.

The spaceport was a jungle of ships, each standing on its tail waiting
to blast off. Most of them were small two-man cargo vessels, used in
travel between Earth and the colonies on the Moon, Mars, and Pluto, but
here and there a giant starship loomed high above the others. Alan stood
on tiptoes to search for the golden hull of the _Valhalla_, but he was
unable to see it. Since the starship would be blasting off at the end of
the week, he knew the crew was probably already at work on it, shaping
it up for the trip. He belonged on it too.

He saw a dark green starship standing nearby; the _Encounter_, Kevin
Quantrell's ship. Men were moving about busily near the big ship, and
Alan remembered that it had become obsolete during its last long voyage,
and was being rebuilt.

A robot came sliding up to the three of them as they stood there at the
edge of the landing field.

"Can I help you, please?"

"I'm from the starship _Valhalla_," Alan said. "I'm returning to the
ship. Would you take me to the ship, please?"

"Of course."

Alan turned to Hawkes. The moment had come, much too suddenly. Alan felt
Rat twitching at his cuff, as if reminding him of something.

Grinning awkwardly, Alan said, "I guess this is the end of the line,
Max. You'd better not go out on the spacefield with us. I--I sort of
want to thank you for all the help you've given me. I never would have
found Steve without you. And about the bet we made--well, it looks like
I'm going back on my ship after all, so I've won a thousand credits from
you. But I can't ask for it, of course. Not after what you did for
Steve."

He extended his hand. Hawkes took it, but he was smiling strangely.

"If I owed you the money, I'd pay it to you," the gambler said. "That's
the way I work. The seven thousand I paid for Steve is extra and above
everything else. But you haven't won that bet yet. You haven't won it
until the _Valhalla's_ in space with you aboard it."

The robot made signs of impatience. Hawkes said, "You'd better convoy
your brother across the field and dump him on his ship. Save the
goodbyes for later. I'll wait right here for you. Right here."

Alan shook his head. "Sorry, Max, but you're wasting your time by
waiting. The _Valhalla_ has to be readied for blastoff, and once I check
in aboard ship I can't come back to visit. So this is goodbye, right
here."

"We'll see about that," Hawkes said. "Ten to one odds."

"Ten to one," Alan said. "An