The Japanese are in space,the US has turned inward - flights into space have become dreams of oldmen and women, dreams of an age of sublimated warfare which have leftbehind only images of charmingly antique rocket craft.Malenfant in thisuniverse is not the reckless adventurer of TIME. He has stayed on Earthto invest in research into what he regards as long-term thinking: SETI,using gravitational lensing to hunt for planets and Eetie signals,exploring the venerable Fermi paradox, 'If they existed, they would behere'.When Nemoto, a Japanese researcher on the Moon, discoversevidence of the activity of extraterrestrial intelligences in the solarsystem, she is unable to reconcile her observations with the acceptedparadigm. Instead of publishing her findings, she seeks Malenfant'sopinion: he travels to the Moon, ostensibly to lecture on SETI, in factto answer Nemoto's question: WHY NOW?Nemoto and Malenfant share thecertainty that the resources of all nations on Earth are needed torespond to this, and this was her reason for summoning Malenfant. Butdeeper layers of Fermi's paradox unravel against a backdrop of violentlymixed reactions to the revelation that alien beings, dubbed the Gaijin,also inhabit the solar system. It's like the Gaijin are e-mailingthemselves from star to star, and are not really there at all - thoughothers might be.In this confusion Malenfant disappears in space andNemoto becomes a recluse in a Lunar cave - both are hatching plans toconfront a threat only they can bring themselves to fully believe in...