On an ordinary Saturday night, operations vice-president James Fitzpatrick MacIlheny is overseeing the vast Circum-Global Communications network when a routine call reveals a disaster: Satellite Four has vanished, cutting off broadcasts, personal contact, and the guidance beams for transcontinental stratoliners. As Mac races to Beam Control, the missing relay is found in a deadly new orbit, apparently struck by a meteor and threatening to crash back to Earth, with global communications and international safety hanging in the balance. With government backing, Mac arranges a desperate rescue using a remote-controlled rocket and even considers a thermonuclear last resort. But the crisis takes a stranger turn when the satellite seems to correct itself. The investigating rocket then uncovers the truth: the "meteor" is actually an alien ship embedded in the satellite's hull, piloted by a humanoid visitor in a crimson spacesuit. What begins as a technical emergency becomes a tense, witty first-contact story, as Mac confronts an intelligence whose strange power source, calm restraint, and startling technology suggest not invasion, but the possibility of exchange. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.
