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_