Clarke Volume IV: A Meeting With Medusa Dial F for Frankenstein First published in Playboy, January 1964 Collected in The Wind from the Sun At 0150 GMT on December 1, 1975, every telephone in the world started to ring. A quarter of a billion people picked up their receivers, to listen for a few seconds with annoyance or perplexity. Those who had been awakened in the middle of the night assumed that some far-off friend was calling, over the satellite telephone network that had gone into service, with such a blaze of publicity, the day before. But there was no voice on the line; only a sound, which to many seemed like the roaring of the sea; to others, like the vibrations of harp strings in the wind. And there were many more, in that moment, who recalled a secret sound of childhood—the noise of blood pulsing through the veins, heard when a shell is cupped over the ear. Whatever it was, it lasted no more than twenty seconds. Then it was replaced by the dial tone. The world’s subscribers cursed, muttered ‘Wrong number’, and hung up.
