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.