Lednorf's Dilemma

    It was five-thirty A.M.  Daniel Cruz ran eagerly along an isolated trail, not stumbling once in the pre-dawn darkness.  He knew the path well.  It led to a little cove on  Monterey Bay--the cove where six days earlier his life was drawn into a dream-like unreality from which he would never fully return.   
    Behind him, 200 yards up the trail, was a quiet bungalow, now being disturbed by the incessant ringing of a telephone he does not remember using a mere 45 minutes ago. For the memory banks of his mind were already being cleared of such less important things so that the aliens can prime his brain for the data he would need in order to convince the "proper people" of a startling fact: the fact that the aliens themselves have been squabbling over the substance, the purpose, and the validity of their long-running experiment with the Earthens.
    The door of the bungalow stood wide open, and Cruz could still hear the pesky phone ringing, though it was becoming fainter--especially as he neared the source of a constant, high-pitched, marimba-like tone that was spreading surreptitiously about the shore, finally to be sensed by the breeze-caressed foliage and its skittering little critters. 
    At last he reached the sand, and beckoned to the craft. It was barely bigger than his bungalow.  It waited for him while hovering above the waves that now and then laced the beach in a long thin streak of silvery  froth.                             
                         _____________________ 

    But there is still more that Cruz must tell the Earthens.  These alien rebels want it made clear that, from this point on, they are ceasing their part in the manipulation of Earthens.  Any strange event, experienced or suspected by the Earthens, must now be looked upon as a possible interference by alien social scientists who are "loyal" to the "social scientific experiment."  So now the Earthens must put everything to the test.
    The faint marimba-like hum ceased.  And Cruz watched the alien thing move slowly down and toward him--like a tapered plate of jewels descending from some black, unknown region of super and sacred knowledge.  Daniel Cruz instantly knew that whatever chasm of difference there was--between himself and any soul on Earth--was infinitesimal when compared to the gulf he now sensed between himself and the alien splendor of this almost sacrosanct visitor. 
    Every neuron and corpuscle of his mind and marrow wanted to kneel in awe.  But, like some errant and sorrowful soul, a part of him wanted instead to cry out to His Lord, the God who was infinitely beyond them all.  And there came a refuge of strength about him as he walked toward the ramp which by now had settled almost to the sand.
    They had told him six days ago that he would get a chance to see their spaceship--that he needed to see it--because some evidence of that magnitude was critical.  The alien had said on that first night, however, that this "gentle" contact was wise initially--for the sake of Cruz as well as for the sake of the special rebel mission.  The alien had promised that in a few days Cruz would "see it all."
    And now, indeed, he was going to see it all.