Pock.
It was a soft, low-pitched noise, rather like a cork coming out of a wine bottle. It seemed to have come just from the right of the control chassis. He halted a sudden jerk of his head on the cushions toward it with a flat fiat of will. Slowly, he moved his eyes in that direction.
He could see nothing that might have caused the sound.
The ship’s temperature dial showed no change, which ruled out a heat noise from differential contraction or expansion the only possible explanation he could bring to mind.
He closed his eyesa process which turned out to be just as difficult as opening them had beenand tried to visualize what the calendar had looked like when he had first come out of anesthesia. After he got a clear andhe was almost sure accurate picture, Garrard opened his eyes again.
The sound had been the calendar, advancing one second.
It was now motionless again, apparently stopped.
He did not know how long it took the second hand to make that jump, normally; the question had never come up.
Certainly the jump, when it came at the end of each second, had been too fast for the eye to follow.
Belatedly, he realized what all this cogitation was costing him in terms of essential information. The calendar had moved. Above all and before anything else, he must know exactly how long it took it to move again …
He began to count, allowing an arbitrary five seconds lost.
One-and-a-six, one-and-a-seven, one-and-an-eight Garrard had gotten only that far when he found himself plunged into hell.