A disturbed Moscow had labeled them horror weapons of the imperialistic powers. And certain American journals had insisted they were super-Soviet aircraft that foreshadowed another and greater Pearl Harbor. But until now the Great Man had never seen one of them--had even disbelieved in their existence. He watched them swoop closer, ever closer, and his left arm sought the reassuring solace of his wife’s waist. “What are they?” he wondered aloud. “Where do they come from? What do they _want?_” * * * * * Suddenly the leading invader dropped with incredible swiftness, until it seemed to be hovering directly above them. A quartet of searchlight beams stabbed out and, for an instant, held it in a crossflare of light. The Great Man gasped. It was solid, and its billowing contours hinted at a complex simplicity that was, the Great Man sensed instinctively, beyond the inventive capacity of human technology at its most ingenious. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone--and with it went the other lights. The Great Man realized he was gripping his wife far too tightly, and released her. He laughed, a bit shakily, and said, “Well, anyway, I’ve seen one of them close up.” “What do you think it was?” his wife asked quietly as they went back indoors. He shook his head. “I’m damned if I know,” he told her. “Darling, I think I’d better talk to Harlan. He may have an idea. Do you mind?” “Of course not,” she replied warmly. “Give him my love. And let me know what he thinks they are.” Harlan was not an official. A philosopher, a teacher, a writer, a brilliant theoretical astrophysicist, he was the Great Man’s closest friend and most trusted advisor. Independently wealthy, he had stubbornly refused to take any salaried post. “This way,” he had told the Great Man more than once, “I’m still my own master and can offer occasional suggestions that you won’t have to frown upon officially.” He had taken a house less than a mile from the Great Man’s inland residence. He did not seem to care at all that it was a comfortable, hideously ugly relic of the “big house” period that extended roughly from 1880 to 1910. It took the Great Man less than five minutes to reach it. As always on seeing him again after a month’s absence the Great Man was startled by his advisor’s outward youthfulness. Save for the grey that peppered his close-cropped hair, and the tiny crow’s-feet about his eyes, Harlan might have been a remarkably precocious, quite recent university graduate. More shaken than he cared to admit, the Great Man asked, “Did you see it, Harlan?” “I saw,” said Harlan softly. Like the Great Man’s wife, the famed astrophysicist seemed built around an inner serenity that enabled him to meet each of life’s crises, firmly, rationally, and without foolish or fearful deviation. “What do you think?” the Great Man asked him.