Burke came back in a few minutes.
"This thing I made is pretty tough," he observed. "It smashed into a brick wall, but it was the wall that suffered." He fingered it thoughtfully. "I had that dream again just now," he volunteered. "While I was asleep on the floor. Sandy, you know about such things better than I do. How much money have I in the bank? I'm going to build something and it'll probably cost a lot."
Sandy's hands had clenched when he mentioned the dream. So far, it had done more damage than any dream had a right to do. But it looked as if it were about to do more. She told him his balance in the bank. He nodded.
"Maybe I can stretch it," he observed. "I'm going to—"
The music had stopped inside the office. The voice of an announcer interrupted.
"Special Bulletin! Special Bulletin! Our signals to space have been answered! Special Bulletin! Here is a direct report from the Bradenton radar telescope which, within the hour, broadcast a message to space!"
A tinny, agitated voice came from the radio, punctuated by those tiny beeping sounds that say that a telephone talk is being recorded.
"A definite reply to the human signal to Asteroid M-387 has been received. It is cryptic, like the first message from space, but is unmistakably a response to the eight-hundred-kilowatt message beamed toward the source of those world-wide-received strange sounds...."
The tinny voice went on.