“I see,” Herb said, nodding. “Well, that’s fine. Bring him in and we’ll plug him right in.”

“It’s cold, here,” Barefoot said. “Worse than the auditorium.”

“Well of course,” Herb answered.

The crew from the van began wheeling the casket. Herb caught a glimpse of the dead man, the massive, gray face resembling something cast from a break-mold. Impressive old pirate, he thought. Good thing for us all he’s dead finally, in spite of his charity work. Because who wants charity? Especially his. Of course, Herb did not say that to Barefoot; he contented himself with guiding the crew to the prearranged spot.

“I’ll have him talking in fifteen minutes,” he promised Barefoot, who looked tense. “Don’t worry; we’ve had almost no failures at this stage; the initial residual charge is generally quite vital.”

I suppose it’s later,” Barefoot said, “as it dims… then you have the technical problems.”

“Why does he want to be brought back so soon?” Herb asked.

Barefoot scowled and did not answer.

“Sorry,” Herb said, and continued tinkering with the wires which had to be seated perfectly to the cathode terminals of the casket. “At low temperatures,” he murmured, “the flow of current is virtually unimpeded. There’s no measurable resistance at minus 150. So—” He fitted the anode cap in place. “The signal should bounce out clear and strong.” In conclusion, he clicked the amplifier on.

A hum. Nothing more.

“Well?” Barefoot said.

“I’ll recheck,” Herb said, wondering what had gone afoul.

“Listen,” Barefoot said quietly, “if you slip up here and let the spark flicker out—” It was not necessary for him to finish; Herb knew.

“Is it the Democratic-Republican National Convention that he wants to participate in?” Herb asked. The Convention would be held later in the month, in Cleveland. In the past, Sarapis had been quite active in the behind-the-scenes activities at both the Democratic-Republican and the Liberal Party nominating conventions. It was said, in fact, that he had personally chosen the last Democratic-Republican Presidential candidate, Alfonse Gam. Tidy, handsome Gam had lost, but not by very much.

“Are you still getting nothing?” Barefoot asked.

“Um, it seems—” Herb said.

“Nothing. Obviously.” Now Barefoot looked grim. “If you can’t rouse him in another ten minutes I’ll get hold of Claude St. Cyr and we’ll take Louis out of your mortuary and lodge charges of negligence against you.”

“I’m doing what I can,” Herb said, perspiring as he fiddled with the leads to the casket. “We didn’t perform the quick-pack installation, remember; there may have been a slip-up at that point.”

Now static supervened over the steady hum.

“Is that him coming in?” Barefoot demanded.

“No,” Herb admitted, thoroughly upset by now. It was, in fact, a bad sign.

“Keep trying,” Barefoot said. But it was unnecessary to tell Herbert Schoenheit von Vogelsang that; he was struggling desperately, with all he had, with all his years of professional competence in this field. And still he achieved nothing; Louis Sarapis remained silent.

I’m not going to be successful, Herb realized in fear. I don’t understand why, either. WHAT’S WRONG? A big client like this, and it has to get fouled up. He toiled on, not looking at Barefoot, not daring to.

At the radio telescope at Kennedy Slough, on the dark side of Luna, Chief Technician Owen Angress discovered that he had picked up a signal emanating from a region one light-week beyond the solar system in the direction of Proxima. Ordinarily such a region of space would have held little of interest for the U.N. Commission on Deep-Space Communications, but this, Owen Angress realized, was unique.

What reached him, thoroughly amplified by the great antennae of the radio telescope, was, faintly but clearly, a human voice.

“…probably let it slide by,” the voice was declaring. “If I know them, and I believe I do. That Johnny; he’d revert without my keeping my eye on him, but at least he’s not a crook like St. Cyr. I did right to fire St. Cyr. Assuming I can make it stick…” The voice faded momentarily.

What’s out there? Angress wondered, dazedly. “At one fifty-second of a light-year,” he murmured, making a quick mark on the deep-space map which he had been recharting. “Nothing. That’s just empty dust-clouds.” He could not understand what the signal implied; was it being bounced back to Luna from some nearby transmitter? Was this, in other words, merely an echo?

Or was he reading his computation incorrectly?

Surely this couldn’t be correct. Some individual ruminating at a transmitter out beyond the solar system… a man not in a hurry, thinking aloud in a kind of half-slumbering attitude, as if free-associating… it made no sense.

I’d better report this to Wycoff at the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he said to himself. Wycoff was his current supervisor; next month it would be Jamison of MIT. Maybe it’s a long-haul ship that—

The voice filtered in clearly once again. “…that Gam is a fool; did wrong to select him. Know better now but too late. Hello?” The thoughts became sharp, the words more distinct. “Am I coming back?—for god’s sake, it’s about time. Hey! Johnny! Is that you?”

Angress picked up the telephone and dialed the code for the line to the Soviet Union.

“Speak up, Johnny!” the voice from the speaker demanded plaintively. “Come on, son; I’ve got so damn much on my mind. So much to do. Convention’s started yet, has it? Got no sense of time stuck in here, can’t see or hear; wait’ll you get here and you’ll find out…” Again the voice faded.

This is exactly what Wycoff likes to call a “phenomenon,” Angress realized.

And I can understand why.

II

On the evening television news, Claude St. Cyr heard the announcer babbling about a discovery made by the radio telescope on Luna, but he paid little attention: he was busy mixing martinis for his guests.

“Yes,” he said to Gertrude Harvey, “ironic as it is, I drew up the will myself, including the clause that automatically dismissed me, canceled my services out of existence the moment he died. And I’ll tell you why Louis did that; he had paranoid suspicions of me, so he figured that with such a clause he’d insure himself against being—” He paused as he measured out the iota of dry wine which accompanied the gin. “Being prematurely dispatched.” He grinned, and Gertrude, arranged decoratively on the couch beside her husband, smiled back.

“A lot of good it did him,” Phil Harvey said.

“Hell,” St. Cyr protested. “I had nothing to do with his death; it was an embolus, a great fat clot stuck like a cork in a bottleneck.” He laughed at the image. “Nature’s own remedy.”

Gertrude said, “Listen. The TV; it’s saying something strange.” She rose, walked over to it and bent down, her “ar close to the speaker.

“It’s probably that oaf Kent Margrave,” St. Cyr said. “Making another political speech.” Margrave had been their President now for four years; a Liberal, he had managed to defeat Alfonse Gam, who had been Louis Sarapis’ hand-picked choice for the office. Actually Margrave, for all his faults, was quite a politician; he had managed to convince large blocs of voters that having a puppet of Sarapis’ for their President was not such a good idea.

“No,” Gertrude said, carefully arranging her skirt over her bare knees. “This is—the space agency, I think. Science.”

“Science!” St. Cyr laughed. “Well, then let’s listen; I admire science. Turn it up.” I suppose they’ve found another planet in the Orionus System, he said to himself. Something more for us to make the goal of our collective existence.

“A voice,” the TV announcer was saying, “emanating from outer space, tonight has scientists both in the United States and the Soviet Union completely baffled.”