Imperial Earth [antikvár]

A SHRIEK IN THE NIGHTD,'uncan Makenzie was ten years old when he founa tne magic number. It was pure chance; he had intended to call Grandma Ellen, but he had been careless and his fingers must have touched the wrong keys. He knew at once that he had made a mistake, because Grandma's viddy had a two-second delay, even on Auto/Record. This circuit was live immediately.Yet there was no ringing tone, and no picture. The screen was completely blank, with not even a speckling of interference. Duncan guessed that he had been switched into an audio-only channel, or had reached a station where the camera was disconnected. In any case, this certainly wasn't Grandma's number, and he reached out to break the circuit.Then he noticed the sound. At first, he thought that someone was breathing quietly into the microphone at the far end, but he quickly realized his mistake. There was a random, inhuman quality about this gentle susurration; it lacked any regular rhythm, and there were long intervals of complete silence.As he listened, Duncan felt a growing sense of awe. Here was something completely outside his normal, everyday experience, yet he recognized it almost at once. In his ten years of life, the unpressions of many worlds had been inprinted on his mind, and no one who had heard this most evocative of sounds could ever forget it. He was listening to the voice of the wind, as it sighed and whispered across the lifeless landscape a hundred meters above his head.Duncan forgot all about Grandma, and turned the volume up to its highest level. He lay back on the couch, closed his eyes, and tried to project himself into2