And there was the problem. How can a being based on energy, like me,
communicate with a being based on matter, like him?
Obviously, I had to signal in some way, give some signs of life that
would be intelligible to him.
He was sitting in a chair-shape of strand energy interwoven together,
and he was thinking gloomy thoughts. He flicked on the televiewer. And
there was the answer.
* * * * *
I found the input flow, followed it into the cathode tube and ate the
pictures off the screen in a discriminating manner.
They were too small and scattered to make a mouthful, but that wasn't
the point. I was able to signal to him! I ate pieces of the picture
coming through and left regular black holes on the tube face, dot,
dash, dash-dash-dot.
Doctor McPherson stood up, approached the set, reached in his pocket
for a bottle and took two pills. And then he switched off the set and
went to bed.
"Now my eyes are playing up. Liver," his thoughts trailed away.
After awhile, I saw a better answer. One man would be scared to do
anything even if I did get in touch with him. What I needed was a
larger scale. If several dozen mush ... several dozen people started
speculating about me, they would lend each other moral support and they
would start looking for my signs. Then I could tell them all about the
little error of appetite.
So I went back down the main power line from Doctor McPherson's
home--high grade, pure liquor in that line!--and tracked it upstream to
the city power house. But when I took a deep bite, all the generators
stopped and an auxiliary circuit from somewhere else started up.