The sound of the morning alarm rang out, four loud hard clear gong-clangs, and all over the great starship _Valhalla_ the men of the Crew rolled out of their bunks to begin another day. The great ship had travelled silently through the endless night of space while they slept, bringing them closer and closer to the mother world, Earth. The _Valhalla_ was on the return leg of a journey to Alpha Centauri. But one man aboard the starship had not waited for the morning alarm. For Alan Donnell the day had begun several hours before. Restless, unable to sleep, he had quietly slipped from his cabin in the fore section, where the unmarried Crewmen lived, and had headed forward to the main viewscreen, in order to stare at the green planet growing steadily larger just ahead. He stood with his arms folded, a tall red-headed figure, long-legged, a little on the thin side. Today was his seventeenth birthday. Alan adjusted the fine controls on the viewscreen and brought Earth into sharper focus. He tried to pick out the continents on the planet below, struggling to remember his old history lessons. Tutor Henrich would not be proud of him, he thought. _That's South America down there_, he decided, after rejecting the notion that it might be Africa. They had pretty much the same shape, and it was so hard to remember what Earth's continents looked like when there were so many other worlds. _But that's South America. And so that's North America just above it. The place where I was born._ Then the 0800 alarm went off, the four commanding gongs that Alan always heard as _It's! Time! Wake! Up!_ The starship began to stir into life. As Alan drew out his Tally and prepared to click off the start of a new day, he felt a strong hand firmly grasp his shoulder. "Morning, son." Alan turned from the viewscreen. He saw the tall, gaunt figure of his father standing behind him. His father--and the _Valhalla's_ captain. "Good rising, Captain." Captain Donnell eyed him curiously. "You've been up a while, Alan. I can tell. Is there something wrong?" "Just not sleepy, that's all," Alan said. "You look troubled about something." "No, Dad--I'm not," he lied. To cover his confusion he turned his attention to the little plastic gadget he held in his hand--the Tally. He punched the stud; the register whirred and came to life. He watched as the reading changed. The black-on-yellow dials slid forward from _Year 16 Day 365_ to _Year 17 Day 1_. As the numbers dropped into place his father said, "It's your birthday, is it? Let it be a happy one!" "Thanks, Dad. You know, it'll feel fine to have a birthday on Earth!" The Captain nodded. "It's always good to come home, even if we'll have to leave again soon. And this will be the first time you've celebrated your birthday on your native world in--three hundred years, Alan."