While he was shipwrecked on a distant Jovian moon, with only a cryptic monster for a companion, Paul Shannon had longed for the laughter and friendship of men and women. But when at long last he brought his repaired space craft back to the familiar skies of North America, he was shocked to find an Earth gone mad. Men's ambitions, women's love, and the eternal clash of wills, all had given way to the passive docility of stunned beasts. A new cult, born in the stars, was sweeping the world, promising glory but bringing only complete mental submission. And Shannon was torn between unwilling belief and panicky horror as he realized that he himself held the only key to that cosmic riddle
