The Moran Library clock is seven minutes slow.
Victor Thorne thought it was just a mechanical failure that the curator was unwilling to admit, until a fragment of a volume that should not have been returned appeared in the return basket, a note was stuffed into the door, and a ship ticket with his name on it lay in the drawer.
Three days later, the Gray Mist set sail from Pulitzer Harbour.
After his father disappeared for three years, the Navy Department began to make up for the post-war files; someone told him not to believe the first person to explain the Western Continent, someone warned him not to board the ship, and someone left the last words:
Once on board, do not count the thirteenth person.
