There followed an ardent description of the social advantage, personal satisfaction and business advancement that must instantly follow the use of a particular intestinal regulator. The commercial ended. "_From deepest space_," boomed the announcer's voice, "_comes a mystery! There is intelligent life in the void. It has communicated with us. Today--_" Because of the necessity to give the later details of a cafe-society divorce case, a torch murder and a graft scandal in a large city's municipal budget, the signals from space could not be fully treated in the five-minute hourly news program. But fifteen seconds were spared for a sample of the cryptic sounds from emptiness. Burke listened to them with a grim expression. "I think," he said measuredly, "that I am sane. I have heard those noises before tonight. I know them--I'll take you home, Sandy." He ushered her out of the office and into his car. "It's funny," he said as he drove back toward the highway. "This is probably the beginning of the most important event in human history. We've received a message from an intelligent race that can apparently travel through space. There's no way in the world to guess what it will bring about. It could be that we're going to learn sciences to make old Earth a paradise. Or it could mean that we'll be wiped out and a superior race will take over. Funny, isn't it?" Sandy said unsteadily, "No. Not funny." "I mean," said Burke, "when something really significant happens, which probably will determine Earth's whole future, all I worry about is myself--that I'm crazy, or a telepath, or something. But that's convincingly human!" "What do you think I worry about?" asked Sandy. "Oh ..." Burke hesitated, then said uncomfortably, "I was going to propose to you, and I didn't." "That's right," said Sandy. "You didn't." Burke drove for long minutes, frowning. "And I won't," he said flatly, after a time, "until I know it's all right to do so. I've no explanation for what's kept me from proposing to you up to now, but apparently it's not nonsense. I _did_ anticipate the sounds that came in tonight from space and--I've always known those sounds didn't belong on Earth." Then, driving doggedly through a warm and moonlit night, he told her exactly why the fluting sounds were familiar to him; how they'd affected his life up to now. He'd mentally rehearsed the story, anyhow, and it was reasonably well arranged. But told as fact, it was preposterous.