midnight before
He let himself be drawn into it completely , and , until it was finished , he was able to forget both the college and the history of the future . But , as he walked home , he was struck by the parallel between the buccaneers of the West Indies and the space-pirates in the days of the dissolution of the First Galactic Empire , in the Tenth Century of the Interstellar Era . He had n't been too clear on that period , and he found new data rising in his mind ; he hurried his steps , almost running upstairs to his room . It was long after midnight before he had finished the notes he had begun on his return home . Well , that had been a mistake , but he would n't make it again . He determined again to destroy his notes , and began casting about for a subject which would occupy his mind to the exclusion of the future . Not the Spanish Conquistadores ; that was too much like the early period of interstellar expansion .