Zephaniah Corcoran has just returned to Earth after a seven-year jaunt to Jupiter where his special--some would say dubious--talents were put to the test in attempted communication with the Jovian cloud-whales. With no time to adjust to life on an Earth half alarmed and half fatalistic at the prospect of final catastrophe, he is headhunted for a reprise of his old job: being projected by the brilliant but asocial Walter Halleck's Coincidence-driven...