Beep… beep… beep.
He then went and had a last thorough examination of the emergency suspended animation chamber, which was where he particularly wanted it to be heard.
At the third stroke it will be one… thirty… four… precisely.
He shivered as he peered down through the heavily frosted covering at the dim bulk of the form within. One day, who knew when, it would wake, and when it did, it would know what time it was. Not exactly local time, true, but what the heck.
He double-checked the computer display above the freezer bed, dimmed the lights and checked it again.
At the third stroke it will be… He tiptoed out and returned to the control cabin. …one… thirty-four and twenty seconds.
The voice sounded as clear as if he was hearing it over a phone in London, which he wasn’t, not by a long way.
He gazed out into the inky night. The star the size of a brilliant biscuit crumb he could see in the distance was Zondostina, or as it was known on the world from which the rather stilted, sing-song voice was being received, Pleiades Zeta.
The bright orange curve that filled over half the visible area was the giant gas planet Sesefras Magna, where the Xaxisian battleships docked, and just rising over its horizon was a small cool blue moon, Epun.
At the third stroke it will be…
For twenty minutes he sat and watched as the gap between the ship and Epun closed, as the ship’s computer teased and kneaded the numbers that would bring it into a loop around the little moon, close the loop and keep it there, orbiting in perpetual obscurity.
One… fifty-nine…
His original plan had been to close down all external signalling and radiation from the ship, to render it as nearly invisible as possible unless you were actually looking at it, but then he’d had an idea he preferred. It would now emit one single continuous beam, pencil-thin, broadcasting the incoming time signal to the planet of the signal’s origin, which it would not reach for four hundred years, travelling at light speed, but where it would probably cause something of a stir when it did.
Beep… beep… beep.
He sniggered.
He didn’t like to think of himself as the sort of person who giggled or sniggered, but he had to admit that he had been giggling and sniggering almost continuously for well over half an hour now.
At the third stroke…
The ship was now locked almost perfectly into its perpetual orbit round a little known and never visited moon. Almost perfect.
One thing only remained. He ran again the computer simulation of the launching of the ship’s little Escape-O-Buggy, balancing actions, reactions, tangential forces, all the mathematical poetry of motion, and saw that it was good.
Before he left, he turned out the lights.
As his tiny little cigar tube of an escape craft zipped out on the beginning of its three-day journey to the orbiting space station Port Sesefron, it rode for a few seconds a long pencil-thin beam of radiation that was starting out on a longer journey still.
At the third stroke, it will be two… thirteen… and fifty seconds.
He giggled and sniggered. He would have laughed out loud but he didn’t have the room.
Beep… beep… beep.
“哔……哔……哔。”
他接着开始对紧急休眠舱进行最后一次彻底检查，他特别希望在那里听到那个声音。
“报时第三响时间将是一点……三十……四分……正好。”
当他透过结霜的盖子凝视休眠舱的内部时，他在颤抖。有一天（鬼才知道哪一天），它将醒来，当它醒来之时，它将知道那是什么时间。不是精确的地方时，当然，但是管他呢。
他反复检查了冷冻床上面的电脑显示，把光线调暗后又检查了一遍。
“报时第三响时间将是……”他踮着脚尖返回了操纵室。“……一点……三十四分……二十秒。”
这个声音听起来就跟在伦敦听电话一样清晰，他离着伦敦还有段距离。
他向外凝视着漆黑的夜空。他可以看见的远方那颗闪耀的饼干屑一样的赞多斯提那星，或者在那个生硬的、带点旋律的声音所在的世界里，那颗星叫昂宿六。
那个遮蔽了半个视野的明亮的橘色曲线是巨大的气体行星西西弗拉斯马格纳，就是爱克西斯战舰停泊的地方，而此时在它的地平线上升起的是小小的蓝月亮埃朋。
“报时第三响时间将是……”
足足有二十分钟，他就坐在那儿，看着飞船和埃朋之间的空隙逐渐变小，同时飞船的电脑纠缠扭捏着那些数字，那些数字带飞船环形接近小月亮，让它待在轨道上，在永久背阴面环绕。
“一点……五十九分……”
他的原始计划是关闭飞船所有的外部信号和辐射，让飞船尽量保持隐蔽直到你能真正地看到它，但是随后他就有了一个更合意的点子。飞船现在要持续发射一个单一电波，如铅笔一般细，把某个星球传出的报时信号再传回去，而这个以光速飞奔的信号没四百年是回不去的，不过等真的传回去的时候可能就会造成一些混乱了。
“哔……哔……哔”
他在偷笑。
他不喜欢把自己想成是个会傻笑和偷笑的人，但他不得不承认自己已经几乎持续不断地傻笑和偷笑了半个多小时。
“报时第三响……”
飞船现在近乎完美地锁定在了轨道上，环绕着那颗不起眼的月亮。近乎完美。
只差一件事。他再一次用电脑模拟了飞船逃生舱的发射过程，平衡动作，反作用力，切向力度，所有有关运动的数学诗篇，最后看到一切正常。
离开之前，他把灯关了。
当他的小雪茄盒似的逃生舱从船里弹出来，开始为期三天的通向西西弗隆港轨道空间站的旅途时，有几秒时间，他经过了那束铅笔一般细的电波，而那束电波仍在一段漫长旅途的起步阶段。
“报时第三响，时间将是二点……十三分……五十秒。”
他傻笑着，偷笑着。他本来可以放声大笑但是地儿太小了。
“哔……哔……哔。”