This is because the idea of intellectually and technologically advanced visitors who hide their knowledge from us is threatening and infuriating. It suggests that there is something ignoble about mankind, or even that we are prisoners on our planet. Those are ugly notions, and I for one would prefer an empty universe to one that reacts to us with contempt or Olympian indifference.

We human beings have a very natural stake in the value and validity of our species and our minds. And this is doubly true of those whose sense of personal worth stems from intellectual work. If the human mind is second-rate, then so are those who live by it.

On a deeper level, though. I find that I am beginning to become a little more at ease with the idea that the visitors might actually exist. This is for an unexpected reason. I think of those rushing little figures, those haunting eyes, the smells, the little rooms, the uniforms, the sense of hard work being done. I remember how stiff and insectlike the movements of the visitors seemed, and how very careful they were to keep me under control at all times, and I think that I may know the reason for their peculiar manner of dealing with us. If I am right, then the source of their reticence is not contempt but fear, and well-founded fear, too. They are not afraid of man's savagery or his greed, but of his capacity for independent action.

I have seen them from close range, and if I was seeing real beings, then what was most striking about them was that they appeared to be moving to a sort of choreography... as if every action on the part of each independent being were decided elsewhere and then transmitted to the individual.

I return to the thought that they may be a sort of hive. If this were true, then they may be, in effect, a single mind with millions of bodies-a brilliant creature, but lacking the speed of independent. quick-witted mankind. If they think slowly enough, it may be that :t human being, fast thinking and autonomous, could be a remarkable threat. It may be that an old, essentially primitive intelligence has encountered a new, advanced form, and is frightened of the potential that our completeness as individuals gives us.

I can picture myself on some night of the future, watching them approach my bed. It will be so dark that I will barely be able to see. But I will see their short selves dressed in their familiar jumpsuits. I will see those big, bobbing heads and those grave, sharp eyes. I will feel their cool, tiny fingers upon me and hear their breathing as they carry me away, perhaps even catch an occasional high whisper, words said and thought like equal sails upon the same ocean. I will know then the reason for both their interest and their shyness: We awe them and frighten them. And I will understand why.