 How did Gwar Den feel about his work?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1949. In the last hours the star ahead had grown brighter by many magnitudes, and had changed its color from a dazzling blue through white to the normal yellow, of a GO sun. They had grown sated with the sight of wonders—of multiple systems of giant stars, of nebulae that sprawled in empty flame across light years. The grownups talked in low voices, in tones of mingled eagerness and apprehension, of what might lie at the long journey's end. The great chamber, a full cross-section of the vessel, had been at first a fuel hold. Eyes lifted from the vision screens to interrogate Knof Llud; he met them with an impassive countenance, and announced quietly, "We've sighted Earth." People pressed round the screens, peering into them as if with the naked eye they could pick out the atom of reflected light that was Earth, home. It won't be the same world we left, the world we knew and fitted in...." Gwar Den was finding that the actual observed positions of the planets thus far located agreed quite closely with his extrapolations from long unused charts of the Solar System. Den was jolted out of his happy abstraction. And we don't know what changes have taken place on Earth. From his private office-cabin, he sent a message to Chief Astronomer Zost Relyul to notify him as soon as Earth's surface features became clear; then he sat idle, alone with his thoughts. The ship's automatic mechanisms had scant need of tending; Knof Llud found himself wishing that he could find some back-breaking task for everyone on board, himself included, to fill up the hours that remained. As the Quest III's fuel stores and the hope of success in man's mightiest venture had dwindled, so the strength had gone out of him. Now the last fuel compartment was almost empty and Captain Knof Llud felt tired and old. Bemusedly Llud got to his feet and stood surveying a cabinet with built-in voice recorder and pigeonholes for records. He might add that to the ship's official log and its collections of scientific data, as a report to whatever powers might be on Earth now—if such powers were still interested. It was one he had made shortly after leaving Procyon, end of the first leg of the trip. "Our visit to Procyon drew a blank. If Procyon had possessed a habitable planet, we could have returned after an absence of not much over twenty years Earth time.
 Proud that he was able to steer the ship home.
 Bored and depressed since the work wasn’t meaningful.  Ashamed since they didn’t find a hospitable planet.  Ready to retire because he had been traveling for so long.  Proud that he was able to steer the ship home.