“Certainly the galactics have landed on Earth many times, and have come among us in human form. For they are human, merely more advanced, more closely approaching the godlike that is the ultimate in our destiny. Frederic Storm would say that it is quite probable that the beings aboard the ship made a safe landing. But we have nothing to fear from them. You must understand that: they are benevolent. Come, now. You’ll miss our film. When you return to my office, you’ll be much more deeply aware of the meaning of this unique and wonderful moment in human and transhuman history.”

Kathryn was ushered smoothly out of the office. She found herself alone in the sterile anteroom. A sign pointed to the upstairs auditorium, and she followed it. A ramp took her into a large abstract-looking room. The rear wall was a viewing screen; there were about two dozen rows of seats, and the customary emblems, portraits of Frederic Storm, star maps, and other Contact Cult paraphernalia along the walls. Four other people, all of them elderly women, were in the room. Kathryn took a seat in the back row, and almost at once the lights dimmed and the screen came to life.

A narrator’s voice said in portentous tones, “Out of the immeasurable void of the cosmos, across the inconceivably vast depths of intergalactic space, toward our humble, struggling planet, come friendly visitors.”

On screen: the stars. The Milky Way. Camera closing in on a group of stars. Suddenly a view of our solar system, the planets strung like beads across the sky. Saturn, Mars, Venus. Earth with the continents unnaturally prominent, an obviously phony shot, nothing at all like a real view from space. And there came a flying saucer soaring out, infinitely small, growing and growing as it neared Earth. Kathryn had to repress the temptation to burst out laughing. The saucer was a comical thing, all portholes and periscopes and flashing lights. So far the film looked like nothing more than a standard sci-fi thriller, handled with the usual degree of subtlety.

“Beings of godlike grace — transhuman in their abilities — benevolent, all-seeing, all-wise — grieving for our trouble-ridden civilization—”

Now the screen showed the interior of the flying saucer. Gadgetry everywhere, computers and clicking things and gauges. There were the saucer people: superb specimens of transhuman life, muscular, magnificent, with expressions of ineffable wisdom. Now the ship was landing on Earth, popping down as easily as a feather. The action became violent: farmers firing shotguns at the visitors, grim-faced men in uniforms attacking them, hysterical women cowering behind trees. And the galactic visitors remaining calm throughout, warding off bullets and bombs, smiling sadly, beckoning to the frightened Earthmen to take heart.

“In this time of crisis and doubt, Frederic Storm came forward to offer himself as a bridge between humankind and transhumankind—”

The great man fearlessly advancing toward the parked saucer. Smiling. Holding out his hands in salute. Drawing geometrical figures in the soil. Resonantly offering welcome. There was Storm aboard the saucer, now. The galactics appeared to be at least eight feet tall. They were clasping his hand solemnly.

“To a hostile, fear-engulfed mankind, Frederic Storm brought the message of peace. At first he met only the jeers and mockery that other great leaders of mankind had known—”

A crowd smashing the windshield of Storm’s car. Setting it afire. The police saving the prophet just in time. Angry fists shaking. Faces contorted with hatred.

“—but there were those who recognized the truth of this persecuted man’s mission—”

A shot of women queueing up in a supermarket to buy copies of one of Storm’s books. Disciples. Storm smiling, addressing a crowd in the Los Angeles Coliseum. A sense of quickening tempo, of a latter-day religious movement getting under way.

Kathryn fidgeted in her seat.

With a kind of empty-headed adroitness the film was shifting madly now, offering a shot of Storm among the saucer people again, Storm leading his followers in prayer and meditation, Storm speaking directly out of the screen urging all mankind to put aside mistrust and suspicion and welcome the benevolent space people with all their hearts. Shots of other saucer-sighters came across the screen: tense women declaring they had seen the galactics, “Yes I surely did,” and lean, trembling men announcing they had ridden in the ships of the saucer folk, “actually and literally’. And a final sequence of shots showing an authentic service of the Society for the Brotherhood of Worlds. It was nothing else but a revival session, full of shouted benedictions and affirmations, of waving arms and glistening foreheads and staring eyes, of rapturous statements of contact with the galactics. The film ended with a rhapsody of organ chords that shook the building. When the lights came on, the other four women of the audience sat motionless, stunned, as if they had experienced a shattering epiphany.

Kathryn left quickly, slipping through the anteroom downstairs before anyone could see her. It had been a waste of time to come here, she realized now. Everything she had heard about the Contact Cult was true: it was nothing but a moneymaking dodge, an attempt to exploit the easily deluded. Kathryn felt tempted to burst into that elegant office and shout, ‘Frederic Storm’s never seen a galactic in his life! If you want to see one, come home with me!’ Were the galactics eight feet tall and supernally benevolent of mien? No; at least one of them wasn’t. Kathryn saw no connection between the guest in her home and the glossy beings of the film. Frederic Storm was a fraud, and his followers were cranks, just as most intelligent people had always insisted. To Kathryn, it seemed bitterly amusing that Vorneen had chosen to drop into a skeptic’s garden. What if he had fallen beside the home of a true believer?

She laughed over that. Surely it would demolish Storm overnight if one of his followers showed up at the evening service with an authentic galactic in tow! It would be like bringing Jesus along to High Mass … an embarrassment for the authorities.

Too bad, though, that the trip had been useless. In what she now saw had been hopeless naivete, she had gone to Albuquerque expecting to find genuine comfort and counsel at the Contact Cult — someone who would be able to guide her and interpret for her the presence in her home of this mysterious being. Instead she had received a machine-turned promotional razzle-dazzle and had been milked of a couple of dollars. So much for the Society for the Brotherhood of Worlds, she thought, as she sped homeward along a freeway just beginning to thicken with early rush-hour traffic. The Contact Cult had nothing to offer. She was strictly on her own in her dealings with Vorneen.

Collecting Jill from the neighbor, Kathryn entered the house and began thinking about dinner. She went into Vorneen’s room. He was awake.

“Have a good trip?” he asked.

“Not really. I didn’t accomplish anything.”

“What’s that in your hand?”

She realized she was holding the brochures and booklets she had bought at the Contact Club. Her cheeks flared. “Nothing much. Just some junk.”

“I could use something to read.”

Kathryn sought for a way out, found none, and said, “All right. For what it’s worth, here.” She tossed the material onto the bed. Vorneen fanned the booklets out.

“What is all this?” he asked.

She said evenly, “It’s literature about flying saucers. I got it at the Contact Cult in Albuquerque. You know what a Contact Cult is?”

“The new religion. Based on supposed meetings between Earthmen and beings from space.”

“That’s right,” Kathryn said.

“Why should you be interested in such things?” he asked, and there was no mistaking the slyness in his voice.