“Seven months ahead,” he said, aware that he was grinning like an idiot. “Thor, you know the trouble we’ve had with that needle in the Hercules haystack! This orbit-curve trick must be something Matthews has yet to dream upat least he hasn’t come to me with it yet, and there’s nothing in the situation as it stands now that would indicate a closing time of six months for the case. The computers said it would take three more years.”
“It’s new data,” Dr. Wald agreed solemnly.
“Well, don’t stop there, in God’s name! Let’s hear some morel”
Dr. Wald went through the ritual, much faster this time.
“The speaker said:
“Nausentampen. Eddettompic. Berobsilom. Airnkaksetchoc.
Sanbetogmow. Datdectamset. Domatrosmin. Out.”
“My word,” Wald said. “What’s all that?”
“That’s what I was talking about,” Dana Lje said. “At least half of what you get from the beep is just as incomprehensible. I suppose it’s whatever has happened to the English language, thousands of years from now.”
“No, it isn’t,” Weinbaum said. He had resumed writing, and was still at it, despite the comparative briefness of the transmission. “Not this sample, anyhow. That, ladies and gentlemen, is codeno language consists exclusively of four-syllable words, of that you can be sure. What’s more, ‘ it’s a version of our code. I can’t break it down very far it takes a full-time expert to read this stuffbut I get the date and some of the sense. It’s March 12, 3022, and there’s some kind of a mass evacuation taking place. The message seems to be a routing order.”