y.

"Yes, I know," I said. I opened my desk drawer, took out a clipping
from the newspaper, and handed it to him.

"That's it."

I read the clipping before putting it back in the drawer.

Manila, Sept. 24 (INS) Archeologists from University of California
have discovered in earth fault of recent quake a sphere two feet in
diameter of an unidentifiable material.

Dr. Karl Schwartz, head of the group, said the sphere was returned
to the University for study. He declined to answer questions on the
cultural origin of the sphere.

"There wasn't any more in the newspapers about it," he said. "I have a
friend in California who got me the photographs."

_He looked at me intently. "You won't believe any of this." He pressed
the coin into the palm of his hand. "You won't be able to."_

"The photographs," he continued, as if lecturing, "were of characters
projected by the sphere when placed before a focused light. The sphere
was transparent, you see, imbedded with dark microscopic specks. By
moving the sphere a certain distance each time, there was a total
projection of three hundred and sixty different characters in eighteen
different orderings. Or nineteen different orderings if you count one
which was a list of all the characters."

I made a mental note of the numbers. I felt they were significant.

"As I said," he continued, "I obtained the photographs of the
characters. Very strange shapes, totally unlike the characters of
Oriental languages, but yet that is the closest way to describe them."
He jerked forward in his chair, "Except, of course, ostensively."

"Later," I said. I wanted to get through the preliminaries first. There
would be time later to see the photographs.

* * * * *

"The characters projected by the sphere," he said, "weren't like the
characters of any known language." He paused dramatically. "There was
reason to believe they had origin in an unknown culture. A culture more
scientifically advanced than our own."

"And the reasons for this supposition?" I asked.

"The material ... the material of the sphere. It could only be roughly
classified as _ferro-plastic_. Totally unknown, amazing imperviousness.
A synthetic material, hardly the product of a former culture."

"From Mars?" I said, smiling.

"There were all kinds of conjectures, but, of course, the important
thing was to see if the projection of characters was a message. T