The soldiers gave a wild whoop of joy as Sid rushed down to the surf, hailed the flotilla. Jane was barely aware of the fleet turning around to come back for the Mandmoora's final three thousand holdouts. The whole planet would be evacuated after all, she thought. It was hard to hold the thought. She was almost delirious with weakness, with lack of blood. She felt Sid's hand applying pressure to the pulse in the curve of her neck. She heard his words: "Bleeding's stopped...." Then, for a long time, there was a gentle rocking moment and a vision, half-remembered, of the three thousand holdouts splashing out across the surf toward the rescue flotilla, then, after that, a slow drifting off toward sleep. She knew they would make it, knew not a human being, Earthman or Mandmooran, would be on Mandmoora when the sun's blowup occurred. She knew she would not see the blowup from deep-space: she would be aboard the spaceship in a hospital room. She regretted that. It was a once-in-a-lifetime story, the kind of story a reporter didn't want to miss. But she had seen another story, a far greater story, the story of the final Mandmooran exodus, the story of life triumphant in the face of superstition and death. She knew that was a far better story. And, besides, she had lived it.