Nine days had passed according to the Solar clock on Paul's instrument panel. Nine days with the air slowly becoming stale. It was beginning to smell a bit, now. Paul did not notice it particularly, but someone just in from a planetary atmosphere would say that the air reeked to high heaven. His senses were beginning to numb. This was not a fast death, but slow and sordid. Paul yawned constantly, and took deep heaving gulps of air only to try again.
Paul fought sleep. He fought it because he knew that he might drift off to sleep never to awaken. But he had no recourse. Most of his time he spent a-sprawl on the cot in the instrument room because he had too little energy to be up and around and when he fought himself to get erect, there was nothing to do but to curse at the inert machinery. He had tried everything. He had considered everything, even up to and including the start of a diary in the hope that someday someone might find it.
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