"Joe won't marry anybody else," said Sandy forlornly. "If he could fall for anybody, it'd be me. He told me so. He started to propose to me Friday night."
"So?" said Pam, with the superior air of a younger sister. "Did he say enough for you to sue him?"
"He can't fall in love with anybody," said Sandy. "He wants to marry me, but he's emotionally tangled up with a female he's had dreams about since he was eleven."
"I thought I'd heard everything," said Pam. "But that—"
Sandy explained morosely. As she told it, it was not quite the same picture Burke had given her. Her account of the trees in Burke's recurrent dream was accurate enough, and the two moons in the sky, and the fluting, arbitrary tones from behind him. Pam had heard their duplicates, along with all the broadcast listeners in the United States. But as Sandy told it, the running figure beyond the screen of foliage was not at all the shadowy movement Burke described. Sandy had her own ideas, and they colored her account.
There was a stirring inside the small office building. Burke had waked. He turned over and blinked, astonished to find himself with blankets over him and a pillow under his head. It was dark inside the office, too.
"Joe," called Pam in the darkness, "Sandy and I have been waiting for you to wake up. You took your time about it! We've got some coffee for you."
Burke got to his feet and stumbled to the light switch.
"Fine!" he said ruefully. "Somebody got blankets for me, too! Nice business, this!"
They heard him moving about. He folded the blankets that had been laid on the floor for him. He moved across the room and turned on Sandy's desk radio. It hummed, preliminary to playing. He came to the door.