The Web of the Magi

Both "Drink Me, Francesca" and "Out There Where the Big Ships Go" examine - in differing but related ways - humanity's first encounter with other intelligent life, and its inevitable profound consequences. In the former, one member of an interstellar expeditionary force is drawn into communion with an intangible, superior being; in the latter an astronaut, believed long dead, returns to Earth bringing with him an alien game whose subtleties the human race must master in order to show itself...