"It can't be ... it's impossible ... I'm going mad ... I _am_ mad!... what did I ever do to deserve this?... how can it be? oh! how _can_ it be?" For a while he just repeated those things until I wanted to scream out in frenzy. But I didn't do a thing. I could see he was beyond my reach--beyond anybody's reach. Then his voice changed, it became low, full of intense energy, ominously quiet. "What did he say? He said the weather had become frigidly cold ... that it would not be long ... that soon the Ice would cover the whole earth...." Then he stopped a moment, his eyes burned maniacally. "But ... I know something about geology ... that was over fifty thousand years ago ... do you hear me?"--he wasn't talking to me, he was talking to himself--"do you get that?... _fifty thousand years ago!_" His voice became low and intense again so that my blood turned to water: "What did he say?... he said to his friend that the land was being flooded with creatures--maddened men and frenzied animals--that were retreating before the Ice ... retreating before the Ice ... the _ice_ ... but good God! I tell you that was fifty thousand years ago!" Then his voice became high-pitched and sobbing: "Oh! Dear Mary and Our One God! release me from this mad dream ... save me from the destruction that will overwhelm me ... how can it be?... it's impossible ... how _can_ it be?" He repeated that dozens of times while he rumpled his hair and ground his teeth. I mustered up courage and grabbed him by the shoulders. Next moment I was spinning backward and hit the wall with a thump. I fell down and stayed there, looking up at Ross with an expression that I sometimes wonder could be. I know my eyes became salty with tears of mental agony--maybe it was blood that I sweated out that night. Then I heard him again, head to one side, staggering like a drunken man: "The radio was only invented twenty-five years ago ... _this_ was fifty thousand years ago ... what did he say?... he said to his friend that this would probably be his last broadcast as the heat coils were running out ... goodbye ... he said ... goodbye, my friend ... civilization is doomed ... the Ice will cover all ... but I know something about geology, I tell you!... that was over fifty thousand years ago!... do you see what that means?" He paused as if expecting an answer, but I knew--my chilled brain told me--that he wasn't talking to me, didn't know I was there. He was still arguing with himself. "You see?... it means that I have received a message broadcast fifty thousand years ago just before the Ice came! ... that's what it means ... do you hear me?" Then he fell into a senseless jargon that I knew meant the coming of the end of his mind's fortitude. It would collapse soon.