Burke was no less disturbed, but his was of a different kind. After he left Sandy at the house where she and her sister boarded, he to the plant. He wanted to think out.
The from space, of course, must events of importance. The of to Earth might be to the of white men to the American continents. They might techniques, weapons, and an of that would with the of Earth. Judging by the of the white on Earth, if the were it the of humanity's independence. If they were invaders....
Something like this would be pointed out soon after the news itself. Some people would with total despair, the to act like men. Some might that a would have a and that on Earth are rare. But there was no one at all who would not be apprehensive. Some would panic.
Burke's was personal. Nobody else in the world would have the same appalled, he when he the from space. Because to him they were familiar sounds.
He up and in the big, in which the work of Burke Development, Inc., was done. He'd done some good work in this place. The of the for Interiors, Inc., still against one wall. It was crude, but he'd it work and then a production model which had now been off complete. A little to one was a of a special machine which out small parts for American Tool. That had been a assignment! There were plastic and glass-wool and such with which he'd done a process-design job for Holmes Yachts, and a box of small parts left over from the job that gave one company the only practical small-plane landing-gear.
These had a meaning for him now. He'd the wanted products. He'd needed processes. But now he to be of his own successes. Each was a new for uneasiness.
He questioned his had not been planted in him against the time when would come from that Earth's atmosphere.
He examined, for the thousandth time, his special with the space noises. In previous soul-searchings he'd the time when the whole began. He'd been eleven years old. He work out something close to an exact date. He was with his aunt and uncle, his own being dead. His uncle had a to Europe, alone, and had which were to eleven-year-old Joe Burke. There was a knife, and a object which his uncle him was ivory. It had a deer's into it. There were some of and a dull-surfaced black cube. They to the small boy his uncle said they'd to men who when the Earth and men the now-extinct beasts. Cro-Magnons, his uncle said, had owned the objects. He'd them from a French who'd a with pictures on its that twenty thousand years. The French government had taken over the cave, but it the had away some small to sell for himself. Burke's uncle them and, in time, presented them to the local museum. All but the black cube, which Burke had dropped. It had into a tissue-thin, plates, which his aunt on out. He'd to keep one of the plates, but his aunt had it under his pillow and of it.
He the he'd his memories so often, trying to something to account for the of his dream. Somewhere after his uncle's visit he had had a dream. Like all dreams, it was not complete. It no sense. But it wasn't a normal for an eleven-year-old boy.
He was in a place where the sun had just set, but there were two in the sky. One was large and motionless. The other was small and moved across the heavens. From him came like the that would later come from space. In the he was full-grown and he saw trees with extraordinary, like no trees on Earth. They and in a breeze, but he them as he did the him.
He was for someone. A child terror for himself, but not for else. But Burke, then eleven, that he was in an of for someone else. To breathe was torment. He a in his hand. He was prepared to do with any for the person he needed to find. And he saw a the foliage. The was almost pain than the terror had been. It was a and amount of that an eleven-year-old boy not know, but Burke it. He gave a great shout, and toward her—and the ended.
He it three nights running, then it stopped, for awhile.
Then, a week later, he had the again, in every detail. He had it a dozen times he was twelve, and as many more he was thirteen. It at all through his teens, while he was in college, and after. When he up he out that are by no means unusual. But this was very from a dream.
From time to time, he new in the dream. He that he was dreaming. His and his did not vary, but he was able to survey them—like the way one can take note of in a book one reads while in it. He came to notice the way the trees sent their out over the surface of the ground into it. He noticed a of off to the left. He that a hill in the was not a natural hill. He was able to on the large, moon in the sky, and to that the smaller one was and in shape. The did not change, but his knowledge of the place of the increased.
As he older, he was to that though the trees, for example, were not real, they were with reality. The he in his hand was disturbing. Its and were plastic, and in the there was a of peculiarly-shaped forms, in and about which wire had been wound. As a man he'd such in metal, once. He'd them out as in a job for American Tool. But they weren't magnets. They were something and instead. He also came to know what the of was, and it was a feat. No boy of eleven have it.
And always there were the from him. When he was twenty-five he'd them. He'd them—dreamed them—hundreds of times. He to them on a and a special mute to the quality he so well. He a to study, but the study was futile.
In a way, it was to be so much by a dream. In a way, the was to through millions of miles of emptiness. But the it—now—to reality! He up and in the empty, and muttered, "I ought to talk to the space-exploration people."
Then he laughed. That was ironical. All the in the world would be all the who might be with the from space, them what Julius Caesar, or Chief Sitting Bull, or some other shade, had told them about the or Ouija boards. Those who did not authority would that they had special talents, or a invention, or that they were members of the which had sent the the satellite-tracking received.
No. It would no purpose to the Academy of Sciences that he'd been like the ones that now humanity. It was too absurd. But it was for a person of Burke's to do nothing. So he set to work in the fashion of one of the he disliked.
Actually, the job should have been in by from learned societies, official bureaus, and all the forces. There should have been about how the was to be up, about how much money was to be by whom, about research-and-development contracts. It should have been as a program of research, in which for all and nobody was to for blunders.
Burke not for so an undertaking. And he that as a private project it was preposterous. But he the of labor that an he sets to work.
He some that he didn't have to worry about. The wall-garden he'd for Interiors, Inc., would fit into final result he got—if he got a final result. He had a available for glass-wool and plastics. If he of an inertia-controlled computer he'd be all set, but he that he could. The item was a he'd from a memory of the weapon. It oddly-shaped of metal, with about them, which to pieces when a through them. That was something to worry about right away.
At three o'clock in the morning, then, Burke out the laboratory notes on the small-sized metal-stamping machine he had designed for American Tool. He'd to do the job with magnets, but they apart. He'd up with blank to provide the sudden, action required, but the notes on the quasi-magnets were complete.
He through them carefully. An not its full power after the is on. There is an resistance, in a magnet, which means that the up gradually. From his memory of the in a transparent-plastic hand-weapon barrel, Burke had that it was possible to make a without resistance. He it. When the on it to full immediately. In fact, it to have a negative-induction effect. But the trouble was that it wasn't a magnet. It was something else. It up as scrap.
Now, very reflectively, he in a metal and out a very of the peculiarly-shaped magnetic core. He it by hand, very painstakingly. It was a job. It was six o'clock Saturday when the was finished. He the leads to a and the switch. The small object itself to bits, and the fifteen from where it had been. Burke beamed.
He wasn't tired, but he wanted to think over so he to a and got coffee and a roll and with upon his accomplishment. At the cost of hours' work he'd a thing like a magnet, which wasn't a magnet, and which itself when on. As he his coffee, a radio news period came on. He listened.
The still from space, punctually, seventy-nine minutes apart. At this moment, 6:30 A.M., they were not on the Atlantic coast, but the Pacific still them up and they were in Hawaii and again on the South Pacific of Kalua.
Burke to the plant. He was methodical, now. He the wall-garden which he'd neglected while the larger one for Interiors, Inc. The one had been in four so he try different and solutions. Now he set the to work. The plants looked ragged, but they'd up with proper and of the liquid.
Then he into the plant's small office and sat with to the design of the magnetic core. At eleven he'd out a and the design, with and all complete. At four the next a second, magnet-core was and polished.
He'd the on Friday night. It was now early Sunday morning, and although he was tired, he was still not sleepy. He on doggedly, wire on a metal form. Just he it.
When the on the wire to swell. He'd it in a small while he it. The and the with the the wire to breaking-point. But it had not itself or anything else to bits.
He was and bleary-eyed. To anyone else in the world, the of this second attempt to make what he of as a negative-induction would an failure. But Burke now why the had failed and what was with the second. The third would work, just as the hand-weapon of his would have worked. Now he to himself the of a with a message from space. The now had two points of with reality. One was the from emptiness, which matched those in the dream. The other was the hand-weapon of the dream, part now did something unknown in a normal world.
But it would be to pass on his to else. Too many have too many triumphs. His actual, would have little of official acceptance. Especially since he would be a non-accredited source. Burke had a small of his own. He had an degree. But he had no of learned to a for what he now knew.
"Crackpots of the world, unite!" he to himself.
He himself out-of-doors to a cool, and to the he'd before. The coffee he ordered was atrocious, but it him. He two at the counter.
"It's baloney!" said one of them scornfully. "There ain't no people out there! We'd'a from them if there was. Them scientists are crazy!"
"Nuts!" said the other earnestly. "One of their would your brain wide open, mac! They know what's up, and they're scared! If you know, I'm too!"
"Of what?"
"Hell! Did you drive at night, and have all the come in like snake-eyes—like little eyes, lookin' at you an' despisin' you? You've that, ain't you? Whoever's signalin' be lookin' at us just like the do."
The man grunted.
"I don't like it!" said the second man, fretfully. "If it was a man headin' out to go huntin' among the for somethin' he wanted, that's all right. That's like a man goin' huntin' in the with a gun. But I don't like somebody comin' our way from else. Maybe he's huntin' us!"
The two paid for their coffee and out. And Burke that the second man had, after all, a truth. We do not like to be hunted. The with which a man-killing wild is comes from vanity. We do not like the idea that any other can be than we are. It is that if we have to a race, we will die of it.
So Burke to the plant and to make yet another of the magnets-which-were-not-magnets. This was to have three of the odd-shaped cores, in line, of a single piece of Swedish iron. As the were put on they'd be in plastic. Over that would go a to keep them from or stretching. It ought to be different from a magnet.
It was an long and job. He what he was doing, but he had about the why. As he worked, though, he out a theory. Discoverers often work like that. It was said that Columbus didn't know where he was going when he started out, didn't know where he was when he got there, and didn't know where he'd been when he got back. The history of the of the has points of similarity. Burke had with a device which itself when on, the idea into a device which to when energized, and now that it would turn out at the third try to be something the said was impossible.
Outside the shed, the world about its business. While Burke on through the Sunday hour, a Japanese at the night sky and six position-findings on the of the space signals. When him at a metal lathe, Croydon eight. American had others. Carefully computed, the added up to the of an motion of the source. It moved against the as if it were a solar-system with an in the some three hundred sixty miles from the sun—as to Earth's ninety-two million.
At midnight on Sunday, while Burke of the magnet-core, Harvard Observatory reported that there should be a very minor at the spot in space from which the came.
The was as Schull's object. It was as M-387 in the catalogs. It had been in 1913, was a very minor body, had an of less than two miles, and its had been noticed to vary, that it was of shape. It was too to have been under observation, but the from space appeared definitely to from its position.
An hour after midnight, Eastern Standard time, Palomar the of light which was Schull's object at the place the was the source. Satellite-watching now the around the clock, and to space for possible to the space broadcast. There was an possibility that the might not be Earth, after all, but a of space—an or a sister-ship.
More data up. M.I.T. of the themselves. Timed, the notes as if by something alive. But were to microseconds. The was that the original had been set up by hand, as it were, but that all were now mechanically—automatically—by a transmitter.
It was Monday when Burke the last turn of the last of his three-element pseudo-magnet. There are many which something else when they in degree. Electromagnetic may be long radio or or yellow light or or X-rays, or who what, according to its frequency. It is different with different properties at different wavelengths. Burke that his and were something other than the "flux" they produced was of a different intensity. He did not it to be magnetism.
At nine o'clock Monday morning, he was from pure, when he to fit the case on the thing he'd so long to complete. The hand-weapon in his through a the very center of the core. The design of the hand-weapon out any possibility of a recoil. It wasn't to allow the hand to take a recoil. So there must be no recoil. On that basis, Burke had what to a thick some six long and two in diameter. With the in place, it was solid. There was no play for the to into. He at it. Common said he ought to put it and test it when his mind was not nearly from fatigue.
Then Sandy came into the shed, looking for him. She'd for work and his car the shed. Her things: a uneasiness, and some embarrassment, and more than a little indignation. When she saw him and with weariness, she protested.
"Joe! You've been since Heaven when!"
"Since I left you," he admitted. "I got interested."
"You look dreadful!"
"Maybe I'll look after I try out this thing I've made. I'm not sure."
"When did you eat last?" she demanded. "And when did you sleep?"
He tiredly, the thing in his hands. He'd had new to know that no is right until something that on it has been and works. He to be pessimistic. But this time he he had it.
"Is this night and day a part of your to those signals?" asked Sandy unhappily. "If it is—"
"Let's try it," Burke interrupted. "It's something I out from the dream. Now I'll out I'm or not—maybe." He a breath. He had a sudden, and of which didn't make sense, like space and which weren't they were of negative self-induction. "If this no of working, Sandy...."
"What?"
He didn't answer. He over to the table where he had storage-battery available. He a momentary-contact out of a and it to the from the small thing he'd made. Then he on the battery.
"Stand back, Sandy," he said tiredly. "We'll see what happens."
He the momentary-contact switch. There was a crash and a roar. The six-inch thing leaped. It Burke's and blood. It across the room, a full thirty feet, and then a water-cooler and itself in the beyond. A tool cabinet and to the floor. The steam, swelled. Burke Sandy and with her as the with acid.
Outside, he put her and his nose with his finger.
"That was a surprise," he said with some animation. "Are you all right?"
"You—could have been killed!" she said in a whisper.
"I wasn't," said Burke. "If you're not there's no done. It looks like the thing worked! Lucky that was only a contact! Negative self-induction.... I'll some and come to the office."
He did windows, from the outside, so air through the and clear away the battery-acid steam. Sandy him anxiously.
"Okay," he said. "I'll come quietly."
He her to the office. He was so physically out, he on the office step as he in.
"Tell me the news on the signals," he said. "Still in?"
"Yes." She looked at him again, worried. "Joe ... Sit down. Here. What's happened?"
"Nothing that I'm a at second hand. I didn't it that way, and maybe it can be up, but I've out to be sane. So I think, maybe you'd another job. Since I'm I'll surely go and maybe I'll end up in jail. But it's going to be interesting." His and he it upright. "This is reaction," he said distinctly. "I'm tired. I wanted to out I was or not. I out I haven't been. I'm not so sure I won't be presently." He a and said, "Take the day off, Sandy. I'm going to awhile."
Then his and he was asleep.
Burke slept for a long time. And this time dreamlessly.
The thing he had for much less than the tenth of a second, but it came out of his dream, ultimately, and it was with sent from Asteroid M-387. There was still nothing about the whole affair. It no single element. But if there was no explanation, there was what now action that be taken.
So he slept, and as the world on its way unheeding. The from the sky the top news of the day. There was no of their artificiality, that they came from a small, tumbling, which was one of the least of the more than fifteen hundred of the system. It was two hundred and seventy miles from Earth. The latest said that not less than twenty thousand of power had been put into the to produce so and loud a on Earth. No power-source of that order had been out to make the signals. But they were there.
Astronomers of news. They each other violently. Eminent scientists that Schull's object, as such, not life. It not have an atmosphere, and its would not a active on its surface. Therefore any life and any technology now on it must have come from else. The most scientists said that they not the possibility that a from some other had been on M-387, and was now sending for help to the local bodies.
Others that anything which into an would vaporize, if it hard enough, or away if it did not. So there was no for a spaceship. There was only for a transmitter. There was no for that. It be mentioned, said these skeptics, that there were other of in space. There was the Jansky from the Milky Way, and from clouds of material in emptiness, and radio were well known. A radio was something new, but—
It was astronomers, so to speak, who took action. They had been off of Earth's moon, and satellites, and they'd in the direction of Mars and Venus and that they got them back. The most returned from Mars had been by a in West Virginia. It had been into a and some four hundred were into it to go out in a tight beam. The took over that bowl again. They borrowed, begged, wheedled, and were of necessary to put nearly eight hundred into a signal, this time at Asteroid M-387. If beings the signal, they might reply. If they did, the would out what to do next.
Burke slept in the office of Burke Development, Inc. His were and peaceful. Sandy was his exhaustion. But presently she used the telephone and spoke in a to her sister, Pam. In time, Pam came in a and a pillow. She and Sandy got Burke to a on the with a pillow under his and a of over him. He slept on, and oblivious.
Pam said candidly, "If you can about anything like that, Sandy, I'll still love you, but I'll join the men in that are mysterious!"
She in the and Sandy took up a over Burke's form.
Pravda in its of Monday that Soviet scientists would send out a space-probe, to around Venus, to the space-signal source. The would a man. It would blast off six weeks, by fuel-carriers which would be overtaken by the and fuel to it. Pravda in a that Russians had been to an in flight, and that Soviet physical science would make a space-voyage of two hundred seventy miles for their astronaut.
Editorially, American newspapers mentioned that the Russians had before, and that at least three now in around Earth, not to mention the one on the moon. But if they it.... The American newspapers waited for a from Washington.
It came. The most of scientists proudly that the United States would to the design and of multi-stage of landing a party on Mars when Earth and Mars were in proper relative position. This having been accomplished, a would then take off from Mars for Asteroid M-387 to the radio from that of rock. It was that the Americans might take off for Mars in eighteen months.
Sandy over Burke. There was nothing to do in the office. She did not read. Near seven the telephone rang, and she its sound. It was Pam, what Sandy meant to do about dinner. Sandy in an almost voice. Pam said resignedly, "All right. I'll come out and something. Lucky it's a warm day. We can in your car and eat. If I had to watch Joe sleeping like that and needing a as he does, I'd my appetite."
She up. When she arrived, Burke was still asleep. Sandy outside. Pam had hero sandwiches and coffee. They sat on the steps of the office and ate.
"I know," said Pam and scorn, "I know you like the goof, Sandy, but there ought to be some limit to your servitude! There are office hours! You're to off at five. It's seven-thirty now. And what will being to that Adonis you? He'll take you for granted, and go off and a of a who'll you you'd have been so much for him. And she'll you and what then?"
"Joe won't else," said Sandy forlornly. "If he for anybody, it'd be me. He told me so. He started to to me Friday night."
"So?" said Pam, with the air of a sister. "Did he say for you to him?"
"He can't in love with anybody," said Sandy. "He wants to me, but he's up with a female he's had about since he was eleven."
"I I'd everything," said Pam. "But that—"
Sandy morosely. As she told it, it was not the same picture Burke had her. Her account of the trees in Burke's was enough, and the two in the sky, and the fluting, from him. Pam had their duplicates, along with all the in the United States. But as Sandy told it, the the screen of was not at all the movement Burke described. Sandy had her own ideas, and they her account.
There was a the small office building. Burke had waked. He over and blinked, to himself with over him and a pillow under his head. It was dark the office, too.
"Joe," called Pam in the darkness, "Sandy and I have been waiting for you to wake up. You took your time about it! We've got some coffee for you."
Burke got to his and to the light switch.
"Fine!" he said ruefully. "Somebody got for me, too! Nice business, this!"
They him moving about. He the that had been on the for him. He moved across the room and on Sandy's radio. It hummed, to playing. He came to the door.
"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I hard long, and when the thing was I passed out. I now. Did you actually say you had some coffee?"
Sandy passed up a container.
"Pam's compliments," she said. "We've been waiting until you slept off your binge. We didn't want to you. Booger-men than they used to."
A voice from the radio in.
" ... o'clock news. A has been toward the space-broadcast by the of the Bradenville telescope, acting as a to the message toward Asteroid M-387. So there has been no reply. We are a open, and if or when an answer is we will issue a special bulletin.... The San Francisco Giants today that in a three-way trade—"
Burke had to nothing else while the news with space signals, but other news did not very much to him just now. He at the cup of coffee.
"I think," said Pam, "that since you've up I'll take my big sister home. You'll be all right now."
"Yes," said Burke abstractedly. "I'll be all right now."
"Really, Joe, you shouldn't work day and night without a break!" Sandy said.
"And you shouldn't have to watch over me," he answered. "Well, I the should be clear of by now. I'll go over and see."
Burke came in a minutes.
"This thing I is tough," he observed. "It into a wall, but it was the that suffered." He it thoughtfully. "I had that again just now," he volunteered. "While I was asleep on the floor. Sandy, you know about such than I do. How much money have I in the bank? I'm going to something and it'll cost a lot."
Sandy's hands had when he mentioned the dream. So far, it had done more than any had a right to do. But it looked as if it were about to do more. She told him his in the bank. He nodded.
"Maybe I can it," he observed. "I'm going to—"
The music had stopped the office. The voice of an interrupted.
"Special Bulletin! Special Bulletin! Our to space have been answered! Special Bulletin! Here is a direct report from the Bradenton which, the hour, a message to space!"
A tinny, voice came from the radio, by those that say that a telephone talk is being recorded.
"A reply to the to Asteroid M-387 has been received. It is cryptic, like the message from space, but is a response to the eight-hundred-kilowatt message toward the of those world-wide-received sounds...."
The voice on.
