Hannibal smiled at the students as they arrived. "Welcome to our last trip this term. I hope you've all enjoyed our little jaunts and found them inspiring. For this week, I hope you aren't all entirely soured on spaceships. We've booked a portal to a space station some time in the future. We'll be observing Earth from space, at a time when the sun is expanding enough to make it uninhabitable. It's a sight I'm told is beautiful and awe-inspiring, and yet also impresses upon you the impermanence of all things."

//In case you're worried,// Jono added, //the sun isn't scheduled to pull this particular stunt for another five billion years, so it isn't exactly something any of you are likely to experience in your lifetimes, outside of this. Earth is quite safe from an expanding sun cooking us all away.// Another beat. //Though we might want to do something about climate change. That one is right on our doorstep.//

Couldn't win 'em all.

Hannibal looked around to see if there were any last-minute questions, then headed for the - running Portalocity employee?

"So sorry." The girl was out of breath and looked nervous, but had a smile plastered on. "We've lost that portal - unavoidable circumstances, we're terribly sorry! But we've got something along the exact same lines, top-notch entertainment, usually a huge upgrade charge, but we've waived it. Please, right this way?" She passed him a ticket with a blurb on it.

Hannibal read the ticket and eyed her with a slight frown, but followed and waved the students along. It did sound very similar. Just so long as his luck and not Jono's followed them there.

If they were to step through the portal and find themselves up to their knees in jellyfish or something, Jonothon would have wor-

//Oh, hey?// So, a ridiculously fancy-looking restaurant was probably an upgrade from a space station with a view, right? Jono didn't look terribly certain. //Is this the stopover, or...?//

"It would seem to be the destination," Hannibal said. He handed Jono the ticket the girl had given him: If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe? Max Quordlepleen is your host for an evening of fine food, fine wine, and a floorshow featuring the universe as we know it boiling away into the cosmic void.

//...So it would seem,// Jono agreed, after taking a moment to read the ticket. //Well... then I suppose we should find our way to our table, make ourselves comfortable, and... watch the end of the universe?//

Hopefully the end of the universe didn't actually include the restaurant.