“My aerospace division has all that crap. I’ll tell ’em to send one of our anchormen up there.”

“In four days, chief?”

“Sure, why not? We’re not the freakin’ government, we can do things fast!”

“But the safety factor. . .”

Trumble shrugged. “If the rocket blows up it’ll make a great story. So we lose an anchorman, so what? Make a martyr outta him. Blame the aliens.”

It took nearly an hour for the accumulated vice presidents to gently, subtly talk their boss out of the space mission idea.

“Okay, then,” Trumble said, still pacing, his enthusiasm hardly dented, “how about this? We sponsor a contest to decide what The Question should be!”

“That’s great!” came the immediate choral reply.

“Awesome.”

“Fabulous.”

“Inspired.”

“Danged right,” Trumble admitted modestly. “Ask people all over the country—all over the freakin’ world—what they think The Question should be. Nobody’ll watch anything but our channels!”

Another round of congratulations surged down the table.

“But get one thing straight,” Trumble said, his face suddenly very serious. He had managed to pace himself back to his own chair at the head of the table.

Gripping the back of the empty chair with both white-knuckled hands, he said, “I win the contest. Understand? No matter how many people respond, I’m the one who makes up The Question. Got that?”

All seventeen heads nodded in unison.

THE POPE

“It is not a problem of knowledge,” said Cardinal Horvath, his voice a sibilant whisper, “but rather a problem of morality.”

The pope knew that Horvath used that whisper to get attention. Each of the twenty-six cardinals in his audience chamber leaned forward on his chair to hear the Hungarian prelate.

“Morality?” asked the pope. He had been advised by his staff to wear formal robes for this meeting. Instead, he had chosen to present himself to his inner circle of advisors in a simple white linen suit. The cardinals were all arrayed in their finest, from scarlet skullcaps to Gucci shoes.

“Morality,” Horvath repeated. “Is this alien spaceship sent to us by God or by the devil?”

The pope glanced around the gleaming ebony table. His cardinals were clearly uneasy with Horvath’s question. They believed in Satan, of course, but it was more of a theoretical belief, a matter of catechistic foundations that were best left underground and out of sight in this modern age. In a generation raised on Star Trek, the idea that aliens from outer space might be sent by the devil seemed medieval, ridiculous.

And yet . . .

“These alien creatures,” Horvath asked, “why do they not show themselves to us? Why do they offer to answer one question and only one?”

Cardinal O’Shea nodded. He was a big man, with a heavy, beefy face and flaming red hair that was almost matched by his bulbous imbiber’s nose.

“You notice, don’t you,” O’Shea said in his sweet clear tenor voice, “that all the national governments are arguing about which question to ask. And what are they suggesting for The Question? How can they get more power, more wealth, more comfort and ease from the knowledge of these aliens.”

“Several suggestions involve curing desperate diseases,” commented Cardinal Ngono drily. “If the aliens can give us a cure for AIDS or Ebola, I would say they are doing God’s work.”

“By their fruits you shall know them,” the pope murmured.

“That is exactly the point,” Horvath said, tapping his fingers on the gleaming tabletop. “Why do they insist on answering only one question? Does that bring out the best in our souls, or the worst?”

Before they could discuss the cardinal’s question, the pope said, “We have been asked by the International Astronomical Union’s Catholic members to contribute our considered opinion to their deliberations. How should we respond?”

“There are only three days left,” Cardinal Sarducci pointed out.

“How should we respond?” the pope repeated.

“Ignore the aliens,” Horvath hissed. “They are the work of the devil, sent to tempt us.”

“What evidence do you have of that?” Ngono asked pointedly.

Horvath stared at the African for a long moment. At last he said, “When God sent His Redeemer to mankind, He did not send aliens in a spaceship. He sent the Son of Man, who was also the Son of God.”

“That was a long time ago,” came a faint voice from the far end of the table.

“Yes,” O’Shea agreed. “In today’s world Jesus would be ignored . . . or locked up as a panhandler.”

Horvath sputtered.

“If God wanted to get our attention,” Ngono said, “this alien spacecraft has certainly accomplished that.”

“Let us assume, then,” said the pope, “that we are agreed to offer some response to the astronomers’ request. What should we tell them?”

Horvath shook his head and folded his arms across his chest in stubborn silence.

“Are you asking, Your Holiness, if we should frame The Question for them?”

The pope shrugged slightly. “I am certain they would like to have our suggestion for what The Question should be.”

“How can we live in peace?”

“How can we live without disease?” Ngono suggested.

“How can we end world hunger?”

Horvath slapped both hands palm down on the table. “You all miss the point. The Question should be—must be!—how can we bring all of God’s people into the One True Church?”

Most of the cardinals groaned.