FR. GEORGE REYNOLDS is a Dominican Friar of the Province of St. Albert the Great. Raised in Oak Park and Maywood, Illinois, Reynolds earned his B.A. in philosophy from Aquinas Institute of Theology and his M.A. in English from the University of Dallas. He served as a teacher at Fenwick High School in Oak Park Illinois and Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas; as pastor at St. Albert's Parish in Minneapolis; and as a campus minister at Emory University, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. With more than fi fty years of ministry under his belt,...

"Aliens are real. We've been working together since the 1950's. In this folder are the details of the deal we made with them. Read this. Honor this. The fate of humanity depends on it." President Alberto Hernandez had read these words many times, as had all of his predecessors since Eisenhower. Now, with only a little more than a year until "the deal" is fulfilled, Alberto wonders what the aliens will do. Earth is well short of its quota. Out beyond the atmosphere, S'heil - the Admiral of the Khamek fleet - has a problem as well. The alien part of "the deal," the ship named the R'ptyr, has...