a date." He looked vainly for the brilliant star as
they walked out into the night. There were clouds of fog from the
nearby Pacific drifting high overhead. Here and there stars showed
momentarily, then were blotted from sight.

The operator in the radio room handed the captain a paper with the
day's scores from the eastern games. But Lieutenant McGuire, despite
his ready amusement at the idea, found his thoughts clinging to the
words he had read. "Was the planet communicating?" he pictured the
great globe--another Earth--slipping silently through space, coming
nearer and nearer.

Did they have radio? he wondered. Would they send recognizable
signals--words--or some mathematical sequence to prove their reality?
He turned to the radio operator on duty.

"Have you picked up anything peculiar," he asked, and laughed inwardly
at himself for the asking. "Any new dots and dashes? The scientists
say that Venus is calling. You'll have to be learning a new code."

The man glanced at him strangely and looked quickly away.

"No, sir," he said. And added after a pause: "No new dots and dashes."

"Don't take that stuff too seriously, Mac," the captain remonstrated.
"The day of miracles is past; we don't want to commit you to the
psychopathic ward. Now here is something real: the Giants won, and I
had ten dollars on them. How shall we celebrate?"

* * * * *

The radio man was listening intently as they started to leave. His
voice was hesitating as he stopped them; he seemed reluctant to put
his thoughts into words.

"Just a minute, sir," he said to Captain Blake.

"Well?" the captain asked. And again the man waited before he replied.
Then--

"Lieutenant McGuire asked me," he began, "if I had heard any strange
dots and dashes. I have not; but ... well, the fact is, sir, that I
have been getting some mighty queer sounds for the past few nights.
They've got me guessing.

"If you wouldn't mind waiting. Captain; they're about due now--" He
listened again to some signal inaudible to the others, then hooked up
two extra head-sets for the officers.

"It's on now," he said. "If you don't mind--"

McGuire grinned at the captain as they took up the ear-phones. "Power
of suggestion," he whispered, but the smile was erased from his lips
as he listened. For in his ear was sounding a weird and wailing note.

No dots or dashes, as the operator had said, but the signal was
strong. It rose and fell and