In the far future humanity has begun to interact with aliens from all over the galaxy. A journalist has arrived on a space station in hopes of photographing an alien ship. He encounters a station engineer who tells him about his past and issues him a warning. When the engineer was a young pre-med student he became obsessed with aliens despite watching similar obsessions result in death or permanent physical and mental harm. The engineer sacrificed a promising medical career in order to obtain an unfulfilling one that would allow him to go into space. He has also spent more money than he should wooing generally uninterested aliens. He warns the journalist that aliens do not interact with other alien species and do not seek out humans either. The humans instead come to them, driven by their obsession and willing to act as menial servants for even aliens deemed failures by their own species. The aliens rarely take humans as sexual partners and never as romantic ones. The engineer theorizes that this obsession, which he views as uncontrollable due to humanity's sex drive, has dramatically reduced the birth rate. He also implies that aliens hold humanity in low regard due to their continued destruction of Earth. The engineer's wife arrives, heavily scarred and fatigued from interactions with the aliens. He reveals that theirs is a loveless
marriage of convenience, as the station exclusively hires married couples. The agreement allows them to pursue aliens, even as both seem aware of the negative repercussions. The engineer begs the journalist to return to Earth and warn others to stay away from aliens. The story ends with the infatuated journalist choosing instead to pursue his first interaction with aliens. ==Publications==