had intended taking an earlier plane, but DuBarry persuaded me to stay
over for dinner.

We dropped into the Algonquin, next door to True's office building.
Halfway through dinner, I asked John what he thought of the
space-travel answer.

"Oh, it's possible," he said cautiously. "The time and space angles
make it hard to take, but if we're planning to explore space within
fifty years, there's no reason some other planet people couldn't do
it. Of course, if they've been observing us for over a century, as
those old sightings seem to indicate, they must be far ahead of us, at
least in technical progress."

Later on, he said thoughtfully, "Even though it's possible, I hate to
think it's the answer. just imagine the impact on the world. We'd have
to reorient our whole lives--and things are complicated enough
already."

Standing at the gate, waiting for my plane to be called, I thought
over that angle. Assuming that space travel was the solution--which I
still couldn't believe-what would be the effect on the world?

It was a hard thing to picture. So much depended on the visitors from
space. What would their purpose be? Would they be peaceful or hostile?
Why had they been observing the earth so intensively in the past few
years?

I could think of a hundred questions. What would the space people be
like? Would they be similar to men and women on earth, or some