** spoiler alert ** This was important to me, because I read it after my brother was killed and I was convinced she died at the end. I reread it years later and found she hadn't. I was at a Boston Worldcon at a panel on Heinlein and told the story and the Ballantines said he originally wrote it where she did die, but it was released in the '60s and the powers that be made him change it. Baen Books released a version with both endings later and I'd like to think I had something to do with it.