ram suddenly showed exotic, curiously curved,
meaningless patterns on top of a commercial spectacular broadcast. At
the same time incredible chirping noises came from the speakers,
alternating with deep-bass hootings, which spoiled the ju-ju music of
the most expensive ju-ju band on the air. The interference ended only
with a minor break-down in the transmitting station. It was the same
sort of interference that the Communications Commission had thrown fits
about in Washington. It threw further fits now.

* * * * *

A month later a vision-phone circuit between Chicago and Los Angeles was
unusable for ten minutes. The same meaningless picture-pattern and the
same preposterous noises came on and monopolized the line. It ceased
when a repeater-tube went out and a parallel circuit took over. Again,
frantic agitation displayed by high authority.

Then the interference began to appear more frequently, though still
capriciously. Once a Presidential broadcast was confused by interference
apparently originating in the White House, and again a three-way
top-secret conference between the commanding officers of three military
departments ceased when the unhuman-sounding noises and the scrambled
picture pattern inserted itself into the closed-circuit discussion. The
conference broke up amid consternation. For one reason, military
circuits were supposed to be interference-proof. For another, it
appeared that if interference could be spotted to this circuit or this
receiver it was likely this circuit or that receiver could be tapped.

For a third reason, the broadcasts were dynamite. As received, they
were badly scrambled, but they could be straightened out. Even the first
one, from Osceola, was cleaned up and understood. Enough so to make top
authority tear its hair and allow only fully-cleared scientific
consultants in on the thing.

The content of the broadcasts was kept considerably more secret than the
existence of Mahon units and what they could do. And Mahon units were
brand-new, then, and being worked with only at one research installation
in the United States.

The broadcasts were not so closely confined. The same wriggly patterns
and alien noises were picked up in Montevideo, in Australia, in Panama
City, and in grimly embattled England. All the newspapers discussed them
without ever suspecting that they had been translated into plain speech.
They were featured as freak news--and each new