account mentioned that
the broadcast reception had ended with a break-down of the receiving
apparatus.

Guarded messages passed among the high authorities of the nations that
picked up the stuff. A cautious inquiry went even to the Compubs.

The Union of Communist Republics answered characteristically. It asked a
question about Mahon units. There were rumors, it said, about a new
principle of machine-control lately developed in the United States. It
was said that machines equipped with the new units did not wear out,
that they exercised seeming intelligence at their tasks, and that they
promised to end the enormous drain on natural resources caused by the
wearing-out and using-up of standard-type machinery.

The Compub Information Office offered to trade data on the broadcasts
for data about the new Mahon-modified machines. It hinted at extremely
important revelations it could make.

The rest of the world deduced astutely that the Compubs were scared,
too. And they were correct.

* * * * *

Then, quite suddenly, a break came. All previous broadcast receptions
had ended with the break-down of the receiving instrument. Now a
communicator named Betsy, modified in the Mahon manner and at work in
the research installation working with Mahon-modified devices, began to
pick up the broadcasts consistently, keeping each one on its screen
until it ended.

Day after day, at highly irregular intervals, Betsy's screen lighted up
and showed the weird patterns, and her loudspeakers emitted the peepings
and chirps and deep-bass hootings of the broadcasts. And the high brass
went into a dither to end all dithers as tapes of the received material
reached the Pentagon and were translated into intelligible speech and
pictures.

* * * * *

This was when Metech Sergeant Bellews, in charge of the Rehab Shop at
Research Installation 83, came into the affair. Specifically, he entered
the picture when a young second lieutenant came to the shop to fetch him
to Communications Center in that post.

The lieutenant was young and tall and very military. Sergeant Bellews
was not. So he snorted, upon receipt of the message. He was at work on a
vacuum cleaner at the moment--a Mahon-modified machine with a flickering
yellow standby light that wavered between brightness and dimness with
much more than appropriate frequency. The Rehabilitation Shop was where
Mahon-modified machines