Strangers

extraterrestrials."
        "But that's an easy question to answer. What a joyous, wondrous thing to discover we're not alone!" Parker said. "You and I know how people would react. Look how they've been fascinated by movies about other worlds and aliens for decades now!"
        "Yes," Stefan said, "but there's a difference how they react to fictional contact and how they might react to the reality. At least that's the opinion of many scientists, especially in the soft sciences like sociology and psychology. And anthropologists tell us that when an advanced culture interacts with one less advanced, the less advanced culture suffers a loss of confidence in - and often a complete collapse of - its traditions, institutions. The primitive culture loses respect for its religions and systems of government. Its sexual practices, social values, and family structures deteriorate. Look what happened to the Eskimos following their encounter with Western civilization: soaring alcoholism, family-destroying generational conflict, a high rate of suicide… It's not that Western culture is dangerous or evil. It isn't. But our culture was far more sophisticated and richly textured than the Eskimo culture, and contact led to a serious loss of self-esteem among the Eskimos that they've never regained and never will."
        Stefan had to pause in his elaboration of the issue, for they came to the end of the gravel track on which they had been traveling.
        Parker studied the map in the dim glow of the glove-compartment light. Then he checked the dash-mounted compass. "That way," he said, pointing left. "We go three miles due west, all of it overland. Then we'll come to a north-south county route called… Vista Valley Road. We cross Vista Valley, and from there it looks about eight or nine miles, overland again, until we might come up behind the Tranquility."
        "You keep checking the compass, make sure I stay pointed west." Stefan drove the Cherokee into the snow-shrouded nightscape ahead.
        Parker said, "This stuff about the Eskimos, all this detail about what the CISG's point of view is like - Mr. X didn't pass all these fine points along to Father Gerrano in one telephone call."
        "Some of it; not all of it."
        "So I gather you've thought about the subject before."
        "Not about extraterrestrial contact, no," Father Wycazik said. "But part of Jesuit education involves a hard look at both the good and bad results of the Church's efforts to spread the faith to backward cultures throughout history. The general feeling is we did a disturbing amount of damage even as we brought enlightenment. Anyway, we study a lot of anthropology, so I can understand the concern of the CISG."
        "You're drifting north. Angle left as soon as the land will let you," Parker said, checking the compass. "Listen, I'm still not sure I understand the CISG's concern."
        "Consider the American Indian. Ultimately, the white man's guns didn't destroy them; the clash of cultures did them in; the influx of new ideas forced the Indians to view their comparatively primitive societies from a different perspective, resulting in a loss of esteem, a loss of cultural validity and direction. According to what Mr. X told Father Gerrano, the CISG believed contact between mankind and very advanced extraterrestrials could have those same effects on us: the destruction of religious faith, a loss of faith in all governments and other secular belief-systems, a rising feeling of inferiority, suicide."
        Parker Faine made a harsh scoffing sound in the back of his throat. "Father, would your faith collapse because of this?"
        "No. Just the opposite," Stefan said excitedly. "If this enormous universe didn't contain any other life, if the trillions of stars and billions of planets were all barren of life - that might make me think there was no God, that our species' evolution was just happenstance. Because if there's a God, He loves life, cherishes life and all the creatures He created, and He'd never leave the universe so empty."
        "A lot of people - most people - would feel the same," Parker said.
        "And even if the species we encounter is frighteningly different from us in physical appearance, that wouldn't shake me. When God told us He created us in His image, He didn't mean our physical appearance was like His. He meant our souls, minds, our capacity for reason and compassion, love, friendship: Those