Then Malenson frowned. Without the master timepiece no clock on board would run, since they were all only terminals of the master system. He hurried to his stateroom and checked the wall clock. It smelled of burnt insulation. He pried the face loose and peered at its vitals. They were a mess of fused cogs and wires. A quick check throughout the ship showed that every clock was in the same useless condition. Even if he had been mechanic enough to repair them ... which he was not ... they were each and every one a hopeless tangle of burnt out innards. The meteor had short circuited the entire timekeeping system of the ship. [Illustration: _The master-chronometer was a mess of fused cogs and wires._] He returned to the control room with some misgivings. The loss of the clocks was no death blow to his kind of trial and error navigation. But it did promise to be a serious inconvenience in the regulation of his life in the timelessness of deep space. He still had his wristwatch, of course, but it was a very delicate ornamental sort of thing, not intended for hard usage. Still, he reflected brightening somewhat, since his exile was to be measured in years and not minutes and hours, the wristwatch would serve. The star-charts and stellar analyzers that could identify any star would do for navigation. He might become misplaced, but to lose himself completely was impossible. He relied mightily on the fact that his ship was, in fact, fool-proof. He kept the nose pointed at Taurus and cut in the second order drive again. The rest of the day, he spent in the library, laying out the reading he planned to do for the next few months. * * * * * A week later, the ship had passed through Taurus, skirted the Hyades, and was heading outward toward the galactic periphery. It was there that Malenson entertained a slight hope of finding a habitable uncolonized world. And there he could wander for years without the remotest chance of running into any representatives of the Galactic Confederation. Two weeks later, his wristwatch stopped. Cursing disgustedly, Malenson shook the recalcitrant bit of jewelry. It ticked fitfully once or twice and stopped. He decided that it must be in need of cleaning. He realized full well that he was not qualified to attempt such a delicate operation, but he also recognized the fact that there was little he could do about it. He needed the watch, and clean it he must; even though he hadn't the vaguest notion of how the thing was done.