supine body.

Later, of course, the information transmitted by Jerry's mind through the helmet pickups to the machine would be translated into English. Then they could all read about the new animal. That would be the interesting part, for them; not this senseless staring at the young man, white-haired at thirty-plus, who would, so far as they'd be able to tell, merely doze off for an uneventful forty-minute nap.

For Jerry, however, things would be anything but dull for those forty minutes.

Once the process was begun, there was no way known even to the discoverer of the Contact principle to extend or reduce the time-period. When Jerry's mind had traveled to that of the alien, he would remain there for the full time. Anything that happened to the alien in that period would also happen to Jerry. Including death.

If the alien somehow perished with Jerry "aboard," as it were, the group in the solarium would wait in vain for him ever to bestir himself and rise from the couch again.

Jerry, fighting the waves of nausea that burned in the pit of his stomach, lay there in his helmet and waited for the tech to finish adjusting the machine.

A scanner-beam, sent toward the suspected locale from the solarium, had instantly retriggered that same green blip in response, as jagged and powerful as before. Jerry would soon be sent right into the center of the response-area, and his mind imbedded in the brain of the alien.

"Hurry it up, will you?" Jerry called over to the tech, trying not to shout.

"Ready, sir," the other man said abruptly. "Are you all set?"

"All set, Ensign," Jerry replied, then shut his eyes to the clear blue sky and the stares of the curious and let his mind relax for the brief shock of transport....

A flare of lightning, silent, white and cold in his mind—and Jerry Norcriss was in Contact....

One of the nurses, crisp and efficient in white starched cotton, took a hesitant step toward the figure on the couch, then spoke to the tech without looking at him, intensely. "What are his chances? It's so important that he succeed!"

About to brush her off with a noncommittal reply, the tech turned his gaze from the control panel to meet, turning to face him, a pair of the deepest blue eyes he'd ever seen, and a smooth-skinned 

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