various expeditions to Venus and Mars."

"None of them made it," Hank said.

"Evidently they didn't have to. At any rate, the plenipotentiaries
from the Galactic Confederation have arrived."

"Wanting what, sir?" Hank said.

"Wanting nothing but to help." Hennessey said. "Stop interrupting. Our
time is limited. You're going to have to be on a jet for London in
half an hour."

He noticed Hank Kuran's expression, and shook his head. "No, it's not
farfetched. These other intelligent life forms must be familiar with
what it takes to progress to the point of interplanetary travel. It
takes species aggressiveness--besides intelligence. And they must have
sense enough not to want the wrong kind of aggressiveness exploding
into the stars. They don't want an equivalent of Attila bursting over
the borders of the Roman Empire. They want to channel us, and they're
willing to help, to direct our comparatively new science into paths
that won't conflict with them. They want to bring us peacefully into
their society of advanced life forms."

Sheridan Hennessey allowed himself a rueful grimace. "That makes quite
a speech, doesn't it? At any rate, that's the situation."

"Well, where do I come into this? I'm afraid I'm on the bewildered
side."

"Yes. Well, damn it, they've landed in Moscow. They've evidently
assumed the Soviet complex--the Soviet Union, China and the
satellites--are the world's dominant power. Our conflicts, our
controversies, are probably of little, if any, interest to them.
Inadvertently, they've put a weapon in the hands of the Soviets that
could well end this cold war we've been waging for more than
twenty-five years now."

The president's right-hand man looked off into a corner of the room,
unseeingly. "For more than a decade it's been a bloodless combat that
we've been waging against the Russkies. The military machines, equally
capable of complete destruction of the other, have been stymied
Finally it's boiled down to an attempt to influence the neutrals,
India, Africa, South America, to attempt to bring them into one camp
or the other. Thus far, we've been able to contain them in spite of
their recent successes. But given the prestige of being selected the
dominant world power by the extraterrestrials and in possession of the
science and industrial know-how from the stars, they'll have won the
cold war over night."

His old eyes flared. "You want to know where you come in, eh? Fine.
Your job is to g