Young Andre, with his severe visual disability, experiences years of alienation, frustration, and abiding sadness in the face of human beings' cruelty to one another. At his boarding school for the blind and then later at college, his sources of joy are few: good food, music, and computer science-and eventually, the arms of his lover, John. Only in middle age does he learn that he and a very few others have been chosen by two far superior alien races to deliver a crucial message to all of humankind. The story is told primarily in the form of a long account of Andre's life: from his very earliest memories of being a visually impaired baby to the stunning visions of their planets imparted to him by the aliens, the Metans and Schegnans. Along with allowing him to view their beautiful present worlds, they show him the extremely violent past that they have evolved beyond. Can human beings ever do the same? Will Andre, John, and the two psychiatrists who are also privy to the aliens' powerful message be able to convince others on Earth to listen and learn? Readers are left to imagine their own answers to these questions. What they could never doubt are the emotion and deep humanity from which this imaginative and poignant story obviously springs.