Try to Remember!

Seven months after an alien ship hangs over Oregon and delivers a brutal ultimatum—communicate, or watch all sentient life on Earth be destroyed—humanity's best minds are trapped in a race against panic, secrecy, and time. At the center is Francine Millar, a grieving clinical psychologist drawn into the crisis as scientists, linguists, and military officials struggle to decipher a message that may already be hiding in plain sight. Working with the careful Hikonojo Ohashi, the combative Theodore Zakheim, the severe Emile Goré, and the wary Dr. Langsmith, Francine begins to suspect the Galactics speak through ritualized gesture, rhythm, music, and dance rather than language alone. A recorded alien sequence, along with films of human ritual movement, reveals startling parallels to prayer, battle, longing, and performance. But the investigation is shadowed by professional rivalry, political secrecy, and a growing sense that computers and conventional linguistics are too rigid to solve the problem. As violence erupts outside and the world edges toward collapse, Francine learns that her husband's death may have been part of a pattern of murders targeting communication experts. In a desperate underground meeting, she is forced to confront the possibility that the aliens are not the only mystery—and that humanity may already be sabotaging its own chance to understand them. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.