"There's an Undertube that takes us as far as Carhill Boulevard and the bridge," Hawkes said. "We can get a ground vehicle there that'll go on through the Enclave and out to the spacefield." The trip took nearly an hour. Steve sat propped up between Alan and Hawkes, and every now and then his head would loll to one side or another, and he would seem to be stirring; but he never woke. The sight of two men dragging a third along between them attracted not the slightest attention as they left the Undertube and climbed aboard the spacefield bus. Apparently in York City no one cared much about what went on; it made no difference to the busy Earthers whether Steve were unconscious or dead. The ground bus took them over the majestic arch of the bridge, rapidly through the sleepy Enclave--Alan saw nobody he recognized in the streets--and through the restricted area that led to the spacefield. 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."