Carl Sagan - Contact

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THE MOST EAGERLY AWAITED FICTION DEBUT OF THE SEASON... Sagan has produced a joyous, optimistic paean of love about the future of mankind.... THOROUGHLY ENGROSSING.

Philadelphia Inquirer

CONTACT [deals] with issues... worth pondering.... The range and depth of ideas is quite uncommon.

The New York Times Book Review

Imaginative flair... The Sagan wit is on full display.... CONTACT jabs at commercial civilization, nationalism, sexism...

The Wall Street Journal

CONTACT WILL AMAZE AND DELIGHT YOU, AND MAKE YOU THINK. IT WILL ALSO MAKE YOU PROUD AND HAPPY TO BE ALIVE.

The Baltimore Sun

A call for reconciliation between science and religion... on the common ground of reverence for the magnificence of the universe... As uplifting as a trip to the stars.

Wilmington News-Journal

LIKE A GOOD MYSTERY, CONTACT KEEPS US CURIOUS TO THE END.... INGENIOUS AND SATISFYING.

Newsweek

Sagans continuing compelling plea that we do not destroy the ineffable loveliness of life on this planet is present in every scene and phrase of CONTACT.... It is pleasurable and reassuring to read a popular author in whom the observable and scientifically imagined universe inspires excitement, humor, love, awe.

Newsday

If there is a God and He isnt in hiding, He will have left an unambiguous message. What will the message look like? Sagans answer is STUNNING AND SATISFYING.

Los Angeles Times

Goes to the very core of human experience... Sagan has made CONTACT with both the mind and the heart.

Louisville Courier-Journal

The pages literally shimmer when Sagan teaches us about... the search for intelligence in the universe.... This is Carl Sagans attempt to make contact with us.

Houston Chronicle

GRAND AND VIVID... A LOT OF FUN.

The Village Voice

WITH TERRESTRIALS LIKE CARL SAGAN, WHO NEEDS EXTRAS?

Time

SAGAN EMERGES AS A MASTER STORYTELLER.

The Christian Science Monitor

BRILLIANT... A FIRST-CLASS ADVENTURE.

Sacramento Bee

Lyrical, seductive, good for the soul... As tireless proponent of mans rational, intellectual heritage, Sagan is without peer.

Oakland Tribune

Mindboggling.

Fort Worth News Tribune

Provocative and often very funny.

Detroit Free Press

Irresistible.

Seattle Times-Post Intelligencer

Truly gripping.

Arkansas Gazette

AN ABUNDANCE OF RICHES.

Atlanta Journal and Constitution

A SPELLBINDER... STORYTELLING GENIUS ABOUNDING... YOU CANT PUT CONTACT DOWN.

Cincinnati Inquirer

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 1985 by Carl Sagan

Cover design by David Litman

Cover image by Forplayday/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Published by arrangement with the author

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For information address Simon & Schuster Inc., 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN 13: 978-0-671-00410-1

ISBN 10: 0-671-00410-7

ISBN 13: 978-1-5011-7231-1 (eBook)

First Pocket Books printing October 1986

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

For information regarding special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-800-456-6798 or

For Alexandra, who comes of age with the Millennium.

May we leave your generation a world better than the one we were given.

My heart trembles like a poor leaf.

The planets whirl in my dreams.

The stars press against my window.

I rotate in my sleep.

My bed is a warm planet.

M ARVIN M ERCER P.S. 153, Fifth Grade, Harlem New York City, N.Y. (1981)

Little fly,

Thy summers play

My thoughtless hand

Has brushed away.

Am not I

A fly like thee?

Or art not thou

A man like me?

For I dance

And drink and sing,

Till some blind hand

Shall brush my wing.

W ILLIAM B LAKE Songs of Experience The Fly, Stanzas 1-3 (1795)

By human standards it could not possibly have been artificial: It was the size of a world. But it was so oddly and intricately shaped, so clearly intended for some complex purpose that it could only have been the expression of an idea. Gliding in polar orbit about the great blue-white star, it resembled some immense, imperfect polyhedron, encrusted with millions of bowl-shaped barnacles. Every bowl was aimed at a particular part of the sky. Every constellation was being attended to. The polyhedral world had been performing its enigmatic function for eons. It was very patient. It could afford to wait forever.

W HEN THEY pulled her out, she was not crying at all. Her tiny brow was wrinkled, and then her eyes grew wide. She looked at the bright lights, the white- and green-clad figures, the woman lying on the table below her. Somehow familiar sounds washed over her. On her face was an odd expression for a newbornpuzzlement perhaps.

When she was two years old, she would lift her hands over her head and say very sweetly, Dada, up. His friends expressed surprise. The baby was polite. Its not politeness, her father told them. She used to scream when she wanted to be picked up. So once I said to her, Ellie, you dont have to scream. Just say, Daddy, up. Kids are smart. Right, Presh?

So now she was up all right, at a giddy altitude, perched on her fathers shoulders and clutching his thinning hair. Life was better up here, far safer than crawling through a forest of legs. Somebody could step on you down there. You could get lost. She tightened her grip.

Leaving the monkeys, they turned a corner and came upon a great spindly-legged, long-necked dappled beast with tiny horns on its head. It towered over them. Their necks are so long, the talk cant get out, her father said. She felt sorry for the poor creature, condemned to silence. But she also felt a joy in its existence, a delight that such wonders might be.

Go ahead, Ellie, her mother gently urged her. There was a lilt in the familiar voice. Read it. Her mothers sister had not believed that Ellie, age three, could read. The nursery stories, the aunt was convinced, had been memorized. Now they were strolling down State Street on a brisk March day and had stopped before a store window. Inside, a burgundy-red stone was glistening in the sunlight. Jeweler, Ellie read slowly, pronouncing three syllables.

Guiltily, she let herself into the spare room. The old Motorola radio was on the shelf where she remembered it. It was very big and heavy and, hugging it to her chest, she almost dropped it. On the back were the words Danger. Do Not Remove. But she knew that if it wasnt plugged in, there was no danger in it. With her tongue between her lips, she removed the screws and exposed the innards. As she had suspected, there were no tiny orchestras and miniature announcers quietly living out their small lives in anticipation of the moment when the toggle switch would be clicked to on. Instead there were beautiful glass tubes, a little like light bulbs. Some resembled the churches of Moscow she had seen pictured in a book. The prongs at their bases were perfectly designed for the receptacles they were fitted into. With the back off and the switch on, she plugged the set into a nearby wall socket. If she didnt touch it, if she went nowhere near it, how could it hurt her?