The Wailing Asteroid. Murray Leinster

got to his feet and stumbled to the light switch. “Fine!” he said ruefully. “Somebody got blankets for me, too! Nice business, this!”

      They heard him moving about. He folded the blankets that had been laid on the floor for him. He moved across the room and turned on Sandy’s desk radio. It hummed, preliminary to playing. He came to the door.

      “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I worked pretty hard pretty long, and when the thing was finished I passed out. I feel better now. Did you actually say you had some coffee?” Sandy passed up a cardboard container.

      “Pam’s compliments,” she said. “We’ve been waiting until you slept off your working binge. We didn’t want to leave you. Booger-men sound likelier than they used to.”

      A voice from the radio broke in.

      “…o’clock news. A signal has been beamed toward the space-broadcast transmitter by the parabolic reflector of the Bradenville radar telescope, acting as a mirror to concentrate the message toward Asteroid M-387. So far there has been no reply. We are keeping a circuit open, and if or when an answer is received we will issue a special bulletin.… The San Francisco Giants announced today that in a three-way trade—”

      Burke had listened to nothing else while the news broadcast dealt with space signals, but other news did not mean very much to him just now. He sipped at the cardboard cup of coffee.

      “I think,” said Pam, “that since you’ve waked 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 bothered to stand watch over me,” he answered. “Well, I guess the shed should be clear of battery fumes by now. I’ll go over and see.”

      Burke came back in a few minutes.

      “This thing I made is pretty tough,” he observed. “It smashed into a brick wall, but it was the wall that suffered.” He fingered it thoughtfully. “I had that dream again just now,” he volunteered. “While I was asleep on the floor. Sandy, you know about such things better than I do. How much money have I in the bank? I’m going to build something and it’ll probably cost a lot.”

      Sandy’s hands had clenched when he mentioned the dream. So far, it had done more damage than any dream had a right to do. But it looked as if it were about to do more. She told him his balance in the bank. He nodded.

      “Maybe I can stretch it,” he observed. “I’m going to—” The music had stopped inside the office. The voice of an announcer interrupted.

      “Special Bulletin! Special Bulletin! Our signals to space have been answered! Special Bulletin! Here is a direct report from the Bradenton radar telescope which, within the hour, broadcast a message to space!”

      A tinny, agitated voice came from the radio, punctuated by those tiny beeping sounds that say that a telephone talk is being recorded.

      “A definite reply to the human signal to Asteroid M-387 has been received. It is cryptic, like the first message from space, but is unmistakably a response to the eight-hundred-kilowatt message beamed toward the source of those world-wide-received strange sounds.…”

      The tinny voice went on.