 It arose because Larry Shaw, who had encouraged him to expand the novella A Case of Conscience into an award-winning novel, recognized that the story raised issues that Blish himself could and should write about at length.Once it becomes clear to all the characters that the beep contains information from the future, each interprets the information in his or her own way.Dana Lje expresses the opinion that cause and effect are simply a construct of the mind, that events are fixed and the human consciousness is simply an observer.