posed to be at least forty eight. Garrard had never been able
to carry his tally beyond twenty, and he had just lost what
was probably his last opportunity to try again.
The micro-time in which he had been living had worn off,
only a few objective minutes after the ship had gone into
overdrive and he had come out of the anesthetic. The long
intellectual agony, with its glandular counterpoint, had come
to nothing. Garrard was now keeping ship-time.
Garrard sat back down on the hammock, uncertain whether
to be bitter or relieved. Neither emotion satisfied him in the
end; he simply felt unsatisfied. Micro-time had been bad
enough while it lasted; but now it was gone, and everything
seemed normal. How could so transient a thing have killed
Brown and Cellini? They were stable men, more stable, by
his own private estimation, than Garrard himself. Yet he had
come through it. Was there more to it than this?
And if there waswhat, conceivably, could it be?
There was no answer. At his elbow, on the control chassis
which he had thrust aside during that first moment of
infinitely protracted panic, the calendar continued to tick.
The engine noise was gone. His breath came and went in
natural rhythm. He felt light and strong. The ship was quiet,
calm, unchanging.
The calendar ticked, faster and faster. It reached and
passed the first hour, ship-time, of flight in overdrive.
Pock.
Garrard looked up in surprise. The familiar noise, this
time, had been the hour-hand jumping one unit. The minute-
hand was already sweeping past the past half-hour. The