FLIGHT FROM TIME By ALFRED COPPEL The meteor-smashed clock at first meant nothing. Malenson had all the time in the cosmos. Too late, he discovered there can be such a thing as too much time. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] A long career of cutting corners had taught Malenson the importance of timing. Time, he had long ago concluded, was the fabric from which were cut the garments of poverty or greatness. And since Malenson had no love for the simple life, it naturally followed that he should turn his talents toward the amassing of wealth with the least possible waste of the precious commodity ... time. He didn't bother to conceal his crime. He only timed it well. And following his carefully thought out plans further, he boarded his ship at the proper instant and vanished into the interstellar fastnesses with five million irridium dollars in coin and government certificates. A galaxy, he reflected, would make a perfect hiding place. One would have only to look at the girdle of the Milky Way on a clear night to see the logic of his choice. Among a billion billion stars separated by light years of brooding emptiness, one man in a small ship would be a fantastically difficult thing to find. Easier by far it would be to find one particular grain of sand on the seashore, than to locate Malenson within the vast limbo of the galaxy. Only if he made a planetfall on one of the colonized worlds could he be found, and Malenson was no fool. His ship was fueled and provisioned for twelve years in space. With care and a strict system of rationing, he could stretch it out to fifteen years. And at the end of that time he could return safely with his millions, for an enlightened penal system had long ago assigned statutes of limitation to all felonies. Nor would exile be an unbearable thing. The three hundred foot ship was packed with reading tapes, classical and popular recordings, all manner of occupational therapy devices, and old fashioned books. Only human companionship was missing, and to Malenson that meant nothing. He had lived a lonely life, isolated from his fellows by a profound sense of his own superiority. He had no love for humanity. So Malenson and his treasure ship fled from the world of men. Up from the spaceport and into the void he went. As soon as he had cleared the atmosphere, he cut in the second order drive and lifted clear of the ecliptic plane at better than light speed. Malenson was no navigator, but his spacecraft was fool-proof, and relying on that fact he drove upward and outward from Earth toward the celestial pole. Leisurely, he settled himself for the first short leg of his long voyage. He was completely at ease, for pursuit in second order flight was impossible.