"Murray Leinster - The Wailing Asteroid" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

hope that someone may be around to catch it. One calls, and sends a long message
only when the call is answered. The call says who's wanted and who's calling,
but nothing more. This isn't that sort of thing,"
He got out of the car and opened the door on her side, then unlocked the office
door and went in. He switched on the lights inside. For a moment, Sandy did not
move. Then she slowly got out of the car and entered the once which was so
completely familiar. Burke bent over the office safe, turning the tumbler-wheel
to open it. He said over his shoulder, "That special bulletin will be repeated
on all the news broadcasts. You've got a little radio here. Turn it on, will
you?"
Again slowly, Sandy crossed the office and turned on the miniature radio on her
desk. It warmed up and began to make noises. She dimmed it until it was barely
audible. Burke stood up with a reel of brown tape. He put it on the office
recorder, usually used for the dictation of the day's lab log.
"I have a dream sometimes," said Burke, "A recurrent dream. I've had it every so
often since I was eleven. I've tried to believe it was simply a freak, but
sometimes I've suspected I was a telepath, getting some garbled message from
somewhere unguessable. That has to be wrong. And again I've suspected
that--well--that I might not be completely human. That I was planted here on
Earth, somehow, not knowing it, to be of use to--something not of Earth. And
that's crazy. So I've been pretty leery of being romantic about anybody. Tonight
I'd managed to persuade myself all those wild imaginings were absurd. And then
the signals came." He paused and said unsteadily, "I made this tape a year ago.
I was trying to convince myself that it was nonsense. Listen. Remember, I made
this a year ago!"
The reels began to spin on the recorder's face. Burke's voice came out of the
speaker, "These are the sounds of the dream," it said, and stopped.
There was a moment of silence, while the twin reels spun silently. Then sounds
came from the recorder. They were musical notes, reproduced from the tape. Sandy
stared blankly. Disconnected, arbitrary flutelike sounds came out into the
office of Burke Development, Inc. It was quite correct to call them elfin. They
could be described as plaintive. They were not a melody, but a melody could have
been made from them by rearrangement. They were very remarkably like the sounds
from space. It was impossible to doubt that they were the same code, the same
language, the same vocabulary of tones and durations.
Burke listened with a peculiarly tense expression on his face. When the
recording ended, he looked at Sandy.
Sandy was disturbed. "They're alike. But Joe, how did it happen?"
"I'll tell you later," he said grimly. "The important thing is, am I crazy or
not?"
The desk radio muttered. It was an hourly news broadcast. Burke turned it up and
a voice boomed:
"...one o'clock news. Messages have been received from space in the century's
most stupendous news event! Full details will follow a word from our sponsor."
There followed an ardent description of the social advantage, personal
satisfaction and business advancement that must instantly follow the use of a
particular intestinal regulator. The commercial ended.
"From deepest space," boomed the announcer's voice, "comes a mystery! There is
intelligent life in the void. It has communicated with us. Today--"
Because of the necessity to give the later details of a cafe-society divorce