"I'd like some more details," Hicks said, "especially if Mr. Rotterjack and Mr. McClennan or Mr. Lehrman have control over me or my story. But for the time being, I'll agree. I will not report what we say to each other privately."

Crockerman put the papers on the table in front of him. "Now, here are my thoughts. Either we've been invaded twice in the last year, or somebody is lying to us."

"The choice seems to be between doom and a hands across-space policy," Hicks said.

The President nodded agreement. "I've made some logic diagrams." He held up the first sheet of paper. "Venn diagrams. Scant remnants of my college math days." He smiled. "Nothing complicated, just drawings to help me sort the possibilities out. I'd appreciate your criticisms."

"All right." Hicks glanced at the piece of paper before the President. Brief notations of possible scenarios lay within nested and intersecting and separated circles.

"If these two spacecraft have similar origins, I see several possibilities. First, the Australians are dealing with a splinter group of extraterrestrials, some kind of dissident faction. But our information is correct, and the primary aim of the overall mission is to destroy the Earth, and the Guest does indeed represent survivors of their last conquest. With me so far?"

"Yes."

"Second," the President continued, "we are dealing with two separate events, which by some literally astronomical chance are happening simultaneously. Two groups of aliens, unacquainted or only marginally acquainted with each other. Or third, we are not dealing with aliens at all, but with emissaries."

Hicks raised an eyebrow. "Emissaries?"

"I'm not completely comfortable with the vastness of the universe." Crockerman said nothing for ten or fifteen seconds, staring at the table, his face passive but his eyes darting back and forth between the candle and his cup of coffee. "I suppose that you are."

"I'm human," Hicks said. "I'm limited, too. I accept the vastness without truly understanding it or feeling it."

"That makes me feel better. I'm not doing too badly, then, am I?" Crockerman asked.

"No, sir."

"I wonder if, perhaps, in charting our universe from a scientific perspective, we haven't lost something ... an awareness of . . ." Again he paused, searching for words. "Transgressions. If we think of God as a superior intelligence, not human, but demanding certain obediences . . . Do you follow me?"

Hicks nodded once.

"Perhaps we are no longer satisfying this superior intelligence. He, or more accurately, It, sends Its emissaries, Its angels if you will, to brandish the kind of sword we understand. The end of the Earth." Crockerman raised his eyes to meet Hicks's.

The waitress brought their breakfast and asked if they wanted more coffee. Crockerman refused; Kicks accepted a warm-up. When she had gone, Hicks investigated his omelet with a fork, no longer very hungry. His stomach knotted, acid. He could feel a kind of panic coming on.

"I've never been comfortable with religious interpretations," he said.