It seemed the hand of providence when Mrs. Frisbee learned that a newly completed astronomical-radio station was seeking janitorial personnel. She quickly applied and was hired.
It was at first only a vague germ of an idea. Slowly the idea crystallized as she inquired of the technicians just how it was operated.
It wasn't really difficult, she learned. An electronic typewriter was used, converting letters and words into mathematical language, then automatically beaming the data out into the vastness of space. It took time, but she even learned what dials and switches to operate so there would be no record of her messages.
The station had been established to try to contact intelligences on other planets or star systems. An idiotic waste, the critics complained. Mrs. Frisbee agreed. Except for occasional space static nothing had ever been received. Mrs. Frisbee knew this from hearing the men talk. Still they kept trying, constantly listening, and at regular intervals transmitting basic mathematics, recognizable by any civilization.
She had arranged her work so that her midnight break came when she was cleaning the control room. There was only a single scientist on night duty, currently Dr. Morrow, who left the equipment on automatic reception while on his lunch break. Mrs. Frisbee never needed but half the time he was gone.
Her first prayer had been a brief one. Gripped with religious fervor Mrs. Frisbee had typed awkwardly, one finger at a time. The whirring of the equipment as it transmitted her words of devotion out to the farthest reaches of space was as balm to her soul.
It was a month later that she decided to test her contact with the divine with a simple request, an apron she had seen in a catalogue. It would be an ideal birthday present for Mrs. Upjohn, she thought. Days and weeks passed and Mrs. Frisbee had almost lost faith, when suddenly one evening, as she was quietly sewing, the apron appeared, bright and gay on her small table. She rubbed her eyes. It was truly wondrous. The thanks she gave in that evening's message were profuse.
As time passed she asked for other items from the catalogue for gifts for other friends. All were delivered miraculously after a few days.
Mrs. Frisbee was at peace—with the world, with herself, and with her maker. Her simple life was full. She had a proven faith, with miracles occurring as she desired them. There was no end to the people she met who needed things, and seemingly no difficulty in having her requests fulfilled. Quite often she was tempted to explain it all to her good friend, Mrs. Upjohn. But something always kept her from telling, a feeling that it might be sacrilegious somehow to discuss it.
Only one thing occasionally puzzled Mrs. Frisbee. Though she always ordered the presents from the mail-order catalogue, they seemed superior in quality and workmanship to any purchased articles....