Man listens to the heartbeats of the stars, hoping to detect a pulse of consciousness among the roaring energies of the universe. Though much in man's vision of the universe has changed, one thing has not. Whether humans saw the cosmos from a Stonehenge or a Green Bank, they felt equally amazed to find themselves alive in such a universe. Whether they looked for signs of gods or consciousness, they acted out of the same hunger to know the cosmos in which they had awakened. Man might never be able to understand the mystery of the universe, but he could not rest until he had experienced that mystery as fully as he could.
Man listens for a call from across the light-years, announcing the presence of a mind.
Yet now man might no longer have to face that mystery alone. If no creature of his own planet could share his feelings, there were yet billions of planets scattered among the galaxies. Each was a womb which might conceive a mind sensitive enough to feel the enigma of his own life and the universe that gave him birth. The universe creates these races far apart and leaves them on their own to try to find one another. When man manages to find creatures like himself somewhere in the enormities of space, his cosmic loneliness will come to an end, for he will join a fellowship of minds who have shared the same experience.