Barnhart sauntered right into the middle of them. He covertly watched the crew close in around him and he never twitched an eyelash. Officers must never panic, he reminded himself, and manipulated the morning sighting on the nearest sun through the Fitzgerald lens. It was exactly 900:25:30, Galactic Time.

He jotted the reading in, satisfied. The warm breath tickling the back of his neck was unnerving. If he showed fear and grabbed a blaster from the locker he could probably control them, but he was devastingly aware that a captain must never show fear.

“Captain Barnhart,” Simmons, the mate, drawled politely, “do you still plan on making the jump at 900 thirty?”

The captain removed his eyeglasses and polished the lenses.

“Simmons,” he said in comforting, confiding tones, “you are well aware that regulations clearly state that a spaceship that phases in on a star in major trans-spot activity is required to re-phase within twenty-four hours to avoid being caught in turbulence.”

“Yes, sir,” Simmons said. “But, as I have stated before, it is my belief that regulation means that a ship should phase to avoid the possibility of being caught in an energy storm. We landed right in the middle of one. As you are aware, sir, if we phase now there is an excellent chance we will warp right into the sun!”

Barnhart shook his lean, bronze head wearily. “Simmons, the Admiralty has gone through this thousands of times. Obviously they know our danger is greater by staying where we are. Why, Ignatz 6Y out there may nova! We’ll have to take our chances.”

“No, sir.” Simmons thrust his pale, blue-veined jaw at him, his light eyes Nordicly cold below a blond cropping. “The storm spots are dying down. We aren’t phasing yet.”

Barnhart drew himself up and looked down at the mate. Behind Simmons, York moved closer. The captain was suddenly aware of York’s low forehead and muscular, free-swinging arms. It was probably sheer bias, but he had frequently entertained the idea that Englishmen were closer to our apelike ancestor than most people ... the way they ran around painted blue when everybody was civilly wearing clothes and all. Obviously York was incapable of thinking for himself and was willing to do anything Simmons commanded him to do.

It became transparent to Barnhart that they were going to mutiny to avoid following their duty as clearly outlined in regulations. Judging from York’s twitching knuckles, they were going to resist by strangling him.

Barnhart wondered if this was the time to show fear and unlock a weapon to defend himself.

York clamped onto him before he could decide on the proper interpretation of the regulations and just as his mind settled on the irresolvable question: If a captain must never show fear, why was he given the key to a hand weapons locker to use when in fear of his life?

Barnhart gazed around the purple clearing with clouded eyes. He trembled in near traumatic shock. It was almost too much to bear.

Regulations clearly stated that no officer was to be marooned on a .9 Earth-type planet at fourteen-forty Galactic Time, early evening local.

Or (he brushed at his forehead) he was damned certain they at least strongly implied it.

But fear was such a foreign element to his daily routine he discarded it.

The scene took him back to his boyhood.

He sorted out the survival supplies, lifting even the portable nuclear generator effortlessly under the .67 gravity, and remembered how he used to go camping regularly every month when he was a Boy Scout. He had been a bookish child, too obsessed with reading, they told him. So he had put himself on a regular schedule for play. Still, it never seemed to make people like him much better. After he established his routine he didn’t try to change it--he probably couldn’t make things better and he certainly couldn’t stand them any worse.

Barnhart paused in his labors and stripped off his soaked uniform shirt, deciding to break out his fatigues. As the wet sleeve turned wrong side out he noticed his wristwatch showed fifteen hundred hours.

As usual he fetched his toothbrush from the personals kit and started to scrub his teeth.

This was when he saw his first qurono in the act of geoplancting.

It was a deeply disturbing experience.

Barnhart and the lank, slick-bodied alien ignored each other every morning while the marooned captain had his coffee and the native chronoped; each afternoon while Barnhart laid down for a nap and the other xenogutted; and of course before retiring while Barnhart brushed his teeth and the alien did his regular stint of geoplancting.

The captain sat about arranging living quarters on the planet. The crew of the Quincey had provided him with every necessity except communications gear. Still he was confident he would find a way back and see that Simmons and the rest got the punishment clearly called for in Regulation C-79, Clause II.

This driving need to have the regulation obeyed was as close as he could get to anger.

His lot was a rough and primitive one, but he sat down to doing the best with things that he could. Using the nuclear reactor, he synthesized a crude seven-room cottage. He employed an unorthodox three-story architecture. This gave him a kind of observation tower from which he could watch to see if the natives started to get restless. Traditionally, this would be a bad sign.

Humming to himself, he was idly adding some rococo work around the front door when thirteen-hundred-thirty came up and he stopped for his nap. At the edge of the now somewhat larger clearing the alien was xenogutting in the indigo shadows of a drooping bush-tree. Since he hadn’t furnished the house yet, Barnhart stretched out on the grass. Suddenly he sat upright and shot a glance at the alien. Could this sort of thing be regarded as restless activity?

He was safe so long as the aliens maintained their regular routine but if they started to deviate from it he was in trouble.

He tossed around on the velvet blades for some minutes.

He got to his feet.

The nap would have to be by-passed. As much as he resented the intrusion on his regular routine he would have to find some other natives. He had to know if all the aliens on the planet xenogutted each afternoon as he was having his nap.

The thought crossed his mind that he might not wake up some afternoon if his presence was causing the aliens to deviate dangerously from their norm.

The most unnerving thing about the village was that there were exactly ten houses and precisely one hundred inhabitants. Each house was 33.3 feet on a side. The surfaces were hand-hewn planking or flat-sided logs. There were four openings: each opposing two were alternately one foot and an alarming ten feet high. Barnhart couldn’t see the roof. The buildings appeared square, so he supposed the houses were 33.3 feet tall.

At the end of the single packed, violet-earthed street facing up the road was a large sign of some unidentifiable metal bearing the legend in standard Galactic:

THIS IS A VILLAGE OF QURONOS

Barnhart received the information unenthusiastically. He had never before encountered the term. The sign might as well have told him the place was a town of jabberwockies.

The single scarlet sun with its corona of spectrum frost was drawing low on the forest-covered horizon. Barnhart, dry of mouth and sore of foot, had not encountered yet a single one of the hundred inhabitants. He had missed his nap and his dinner, and now (he ran his tongue over his thick-feeling teeth) he was about to miss his nightly brushing of his teeth. He had taken only a minimum survival kit with him--which did not include a smaller personals kit.

His wristwatch, still on good, reliable ship’s time, recorded nearly fifteen hundred hours straight up. His body chemistry was still operating on the Captain’s Shift, whereby he spent part of the time with both the day and night shifts. It was nearly time for him to go to bed. Fortunately it was almost night on the planet.

He was searching out his portable force field projector from some loose coins and keys when the one hundred quronos came out of their houses and began geoplancting.

Fifth Day Marooned

_The Journal of

Captain T. P. Barnhart,

Late of the U.G.S. Quincey_

It becomes apparent that I may never leave alive this planet whose

name and co-ordinates have been kept from me. By reason, justice

and regulations, the men who put me here must pay (see formal

attached warrant against First Mate O. D. Simmons and the remainder

of my crew). For this reason and in the interest of science I am

beginning this journal, to which I hope to continue contributing

from time to time, barring sudden death.

At this writing I am in a village of ten houses identified as a

settlement of quronos. These tall, hairless humanoids have

performed an intricate series of indescribable actions since I

first encountered them. My problem, as is apparent, is to decide

whether these actions constitute their normal daily routine or

whether I have instigated this series of actions.

If the latter is the case: where will it all end?

1700: Fifth day

Barnhart was not used to being ignored.

It was certainly not a part of his normal routine. Often in his life he had been scorned and ridiculed. Later, when he earned a captaincy in the exploration service, the men around him had to at least make a show of respect and paying attention to him. Being ignored was a new experience for him. While it was a strange thing to say of an explorer, Barnhart didn’t particularly like new experiences ... or rather he only liked the same kind of new experiences.

He kicked the wine-colored soil in red-faced impotence the first few dozen times quronos went silently past him on the way to gather fruit from the forest, or hew logs to keep the buildings in repairs (which seemed to be a constant occupation.)

However, when the twenty-fifth alien shouldered past him the morning after he first discovered the village, Barnhart caught him by the shoulder, swung him half around and slugged him off his feet with a stabbing right cross.

The alien shook his head foggily a few times and slowly climbed to his feet.

Barnhart bit at his under lip. That hadn’t been a wise thing to do at all. He should know that unorthodox moves like that led only to certain disaster. He fumbled for his force-field projector, and with a flush of adrenalin discovered he had lost it.

Now, he thought, the alien will signal the rest of them. And they, all one hundred of them (now does that include the one I first saw in the clearing or not?) they will converge on me and--

The qurono marched off into the forest.

Everyone was still ignoring Barnhart.

Barnhart munched on a steak sandwich listlessly and watched the aliens through the faint haze of the force field.

He had found the projector half stamped into the earth and he was testing it. But even a test was foolish. None of them was close enough to him to harm him with so much as a communicable disease. He might as well quit roughing it and get back to the cottage.

In the last few days he had had time to think. He took up his journal.

Eighth Day

I can only suppose that these actions of the aliens represent some

kind of religious ritual. Again I am presented with the problem of

whether these rituals are a part of their normal, daily life, or

are they a special series instigated by my presence?

Yesterday I observed two of the quronos repairing one of the

village houses. The native lumber seems to be ill-suited to

construction purposes. Several times I have noticed logs tearing

themselves free and crawling back into the virgin forest. Due to

the instability of their building materials the aliens are

constantly having to repair their houses.

In watching the two quronos at work I observed something highly

significant.

The humanoids worked smoothly as a team, splitting and planing down

the reluctant logs with double-bladed axes. Then, putting the

lumber in place, they fastened it down with triangular wooden pegs.

They pounded these pegs home awkwardly with the flat side of the

axes.

The axes are crude and obviously indigenous to the culture.

I view this with considerable alarm.

Obviously any culture that can produce an axe is capable of

inventing the hammer.

The quronos are not using their hammers in front of me. I am

producing a change in their routine.

Where will it end?

What are they saving their hammers for?

800: Eighth Day

Barnhart had written that just before dawn, but as usual the aliens had continued to ignore him. For all he knew the ritual might go on for years--before they used their hammers. Or whatever they were planning.

It was drawing near time for his nap, but he felt completely wide awake even inside the safety of the force field. His throat hurt and the backs of his legs ached with the waiting, the waiting for the natives to come out and begin xenogutting.

He wiped his hands together and forced a smile. Why should he worry what the natives did? He was completely safe. He could live out his life in immutable security.