‘Idle curiosity,’ Ward said. ‘I had an afternoon off and I felt like a drive.’

They reached the crest of the hill and he stopped and looked down into the basin. The lines of string split the circle into a strange horological device, a huge zodiacal mandala, the dark patches in the arcs Kandinski had been working telling its stations.

‘You were going to tell me why you came out here,’ Kandinski said as they walked back to the car.

Ward shrugged. ‘I suppose I wanted to prove something to myself. There’s a problem of reconciliation.’ He hesitated, and then began: ‘You see, there are some things which are self-evidently false. The laws of common sense and everyday experience refute them. I know a lot of the evidence for many things we believe in is pretty thin, but I don’t have to embark on a theory of knowledge to decide that the Moon isn’t made of green cheese.’

‘Well?’ Kandinski shifted the satchel to his other shoulder.

‘This Venusian you’ve seen,’ Ward said. ‘The landing, the runic tablet. I can’t believe them. Every piece of evidence I’ve seen, all the circumstantial details, the facts given in this book… they’re all patently false.’ He turned to one of the middle chapters. ‘Take this at random — "A phosphorescent green fluid pulsed through the dorsal lung-chamber of the Prime’s helmet, inflating two opaque fan-like gills…" Ward closed the book and shrugged helplessly. Kandinski stood a few feet away from him, the sunlight breaking across the deep lines of his face.

‘Now I know what you say to my objections,’ Ward went on. ‘If you told a 19th century chemist that lead could be transmuted into gold he would have dismissed you as a mediaevalist. But the point is that he’d have been right to do so—’

‘I understand,’ Kandinski interrupted. ‘But you still haven’t explained why you came out here today.’

Ward stared out over the desert. High above, a stratojet was doing cuban eights into the sun, the spiral vapour trails drifting across the sky like gigantic fragments of an apocalyptic message. Looking around, he realized that Kandinski must have walked from the bus-stop on the highway. ‘I’ll give you a lift back,’ he said.

As they drove along the canal he turned to Kandinski. ‘I enjoyed your lecture last night. I apologize for trying to make you look a fool.’

Kandinski was loosening his boot-straps. He laughed unreproachfully. ‘You put me in an awkward position. I could hardly have challenged you. I can’t afford to subscribe to every astronomical journal. Though a sixth moon would have been big news.’ As they neared Vernon Gardens he asked: ‘Would you like to come in and look at the tablet analysis?’

Ward made no reply to the invitation. He drove around the square and parked under the trees, then looked up at the fountains, tapping his fingers on the windshield. Kandinski sat beside him, cogitating into his beard.

Ward watched him carefully. ‘Do you think this Venusian will return?’

Kandinski nodded. ‘Yes. I am sure he will.’

Later they sat together at a broad roll-top desk in the room above the Tycho. Around the wall hung white cardboard screens packed with lines of cuneiform glyphics and Kandinski’s progressive breakdown of their meaning.

Ward held an enlargement of the original photograph of the Venusian tablet and listened to Kandinski’s explanation.

‘As you see from this,’ Kandinski explained, ‘in all probability there are not millions of Venusians, as every one would expect, but only three or four of them altogether. Two are circling Venus, a third Uranus and possibly a fourth is in orbit around Neptune. This solves the difficulty that puzzled you and antagonizes everyone else. Why should the Prime have approached only one person out of several hundred million and selected him on a completely random basis? Now obviously he had seen the Russian and American satellite capsules and assumed that our race, like his now, numbered no more than three or four, then concluded from the atmospheric H-bomb tests that we were in conflict and would soon destroy ourselves. This is one of the reasons why I think he will return shortly and why it is important to organize a world-wide reception for him on a governmental level.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Ward said. ‘He must have known that the population of this planet numbered more than three or four. Even the weakest telescope would demonstrate that.’

‘Of course, but he would naturally assume that the millions of inhabitants of the Earth belonged to an aboriginal sub-species, perhaps employed as work animals. After all, if he observed that despite this planet’s immense resources the bulk of its population lived like animals, an alien visitor could only decide that they were considered as such.’

‘But space vehicles are supposed to have been observing us since the Babylonian era, long before the development of satellite rockets. There have been thousands of recorded sightings.’

Kandinski shook his head. ‘None of them has been authenticated.’

‘What about the other landings that have been reported recently?’ Ward asked. ‘Any number of people have seen Venusians and Martians.’

‘Have they?’ Kandinski asked sceptically. ‘I wish I could believe that. Some of the encounters reveal marvellous powers of invention, but no one can accept them as anything but fantasy.’

‘The same criticism has been levelled at your space-craft,’ Ward reminded him.

Kandinski seemed to lose patience. ‘I saw it,’ he explained, impotently tossing his notebook on to the desk. ‘I spoke to the Prime!’

Ward nodded non-committally and picked up the photograph again. Kandinski stepped over to him and took it out of his hands. ‘Ward,’ he said carefully. ‘Believe me. You must. You know I am too big a man to waste myself on a senseless charade.’ His massive hands squeezed Ward’s shoulders, and almost lifted him off the seat. ‘Believe me. Together we can be ready for the next landings and alert the world. I am only Charles Kandinski, a waiter at a thirdrate caf, but you are Dr Andrew Ward of Mount Vernon Observatory. They will listen to you. Try to realize what this may mean for mankind.’

Ward pulled himself away from Kandinski and rubbed his shoulders.

‘Ward, do you believe me? Ask yourself.’

Ward looked up pensively at Kandinski towering over him, his red beard like the burning, unconsumed bush.

‘I think so,’ he said quietly. ‘Yes, I do.’

A week later the 23rd Congress of the International Geophysical Association opened at Mount Vernon Observatory. At 3.30 P.M., in the Hoyle Library amphitheatre, Professor Renthall was to deliver the inaugural address welcoming the 92 delegates and 25 newspaper and agency reporters to the fortnight’s programme of lectures and discussions.

Shortly after 11 o’clock that morning Ward and Professor Cameron completed their final arrangements and escaped down to Vernon Gardens for an hour’s relaxation.

‘Well,’ Cameron said as they walked over to the Site Tycho, ‘I’ve got a pretty good idea of what it must be like to run the Waldorf-Astoria.’ They picked one of the sidewalk tables and sat down. ‘I haven’t been here for weeks,’ Cameron said. ‘How are you getting on with the Man in the Moon?’

‘Kandinski? I hardly ever see him,’ Ward said.

‘I was talking to the Time magazine stringer about Charles,’ Cameron said, cleaning his sunglasses. ‘He thought he might do a piece about him.’

‘Hasn’t Kandinski suffered enough of that sort of thing?’ Ward asked moodily.

‘Perhaps he has,’ Cameron agreed. ‘Is he still working on his crossword puzzle? The tablet thing, whatever he calls it.’

Casually, Ward said: ‘He has a theory that it should be possible to see the lunar bases. Refuelling points established there by the Venusians over the centuries.’

‘Interesting,’ Cameron commented.

‘They’re sited near Copernicus,’ Ward went on. ‘I know Vandone at Milan is mapping Archimedes and the Imbrium, I thought I might mention it to him at his semester tomorrow.’