Nautunal dropped his skeptical pose, and watched the emerging tape in silence. The growing table of symbols built all the simple additions up to 10 plus 10, by the laborious accumulation of dots. Then it began again, systematically, "One and one are two, two and two—"
Pehn turned his wondering eyes on his friend. "Is this trick? Joke you rigged up for my benefit?"
"Is this a trick?"
Nautunal shook his head, and his voice was hardly a whisper. "No. That stuff is really coming through space—through phase space."
Twice more, the table of additions appeared. Then, after a brief pause, came simple multiplications. Hour after hour the signals continued, endlessly repeated, and shortly after midnight the two could recognize the periodic table of chemical elements, with atomic weights and numbers of isotopes.
"If those numbers which follow atomic weights are abundances," said Pehn, "composition of their planet is not quite same as ours. Look how rare 235 is. Where do you suppose this is coming from?"
"You guess," said Nautunal. He waved his arm towards the transparent dome through which the stars shone, and grinned. "From little data I have so far, signals might be coming from somewhere in Weaver, perhaps from neighborhood of Topaz, but it's too early to be sure of anything."