A series of UFO sightings across western Canada was what gave credence to a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman's speculation that aliens had landed. Reports had been received first from Saskatoon and Regina, then from outposts farther north and into the Yukon -- the usual crackpot sightings of white flashing lights, highly illuminated disk-like objects, that kind of thing. Some of these things turned out to be the result of U.S. government experiments with the upper atmosphere -- resulting in the media playing up the usual Canadian paranoia about being a site for military testing.

It was principally the village of Aurora Junction itself, however, that was in an uproar. A ramshackle collection of quonset-huts and cabins that served mainly as a gateway for scientific and other expeditions into the Arctic, Aurora Junction was more a settlement than a town -- and, because of its northerly latitude, it was plunged into frigid cold and darkness for much of each year. But virtually everyone in town had seen the light.

"It was amazing -- like some giant halogen light bulb had been turned on in the sky," Annie Olsen, the half-Swedish, half-Aleut woman who ran the snack bar at the Aurora Junction airstrip and postal depot, had told TV news reporters sent up from Calgary. "Out that way," she'd said, pointing in the direction that Hollis Burns had walked.

Crunch, crunch, crunch. Western Canada has long been known as a hotbed of UFO sightings. But even as they traipsed across the frozen white north, none of the three members of this RCMP search team expected to be involved in as bizarre an incident as this was rapidly becoming.

The media had descended on Aurora Junction with a vengeance, and it seemed that virtually all of its 250 residents had his or her own theory of what had happened -- a Russian spy satellite had burned up and come down, a U.S. military reconnaissance flight had crashed, someone had torn a hole in the space-time continuum, and -- inevitably -- visitors from another galaxy had arrived. It was Annie Olsen, however, who captured investigators' attention with her reports of the strangely silent man who'd flown into Aurora Junction and, mysteriously, had set off on foot onto the frozen tundra. Under questioning, Annie had explained that he'd chartered a plane up from Yellowknife from the pilot who delivered the weekly mail, and that when she saw him, she just assumed he was "some scientist type" doing research. "We get a lot of them up here -- from the Survey, you know."

The following morning, the RCMP investigative team had split into two groups -- one to track down the pilot in Yellowknife, to see if he could tell them his passenger's name -- and one to set off onto the tundra, in the direction of the bright white light's appearance, to see if any clues could be gathered.

It was the second group that had the most luck -- if you can call it that. Hiking across the frozen snowpack outside Aurora, following windblown footprints, alert to the odd wolf, moose, or grizzly, the team of two men and one woman, about a half-hour's walk from the airstrip, came upon clear evidence of . . . something. A circle of about 100 feet in diameter seemed to have been "burned" into the snow, leaving only scorched, blackened, and already re-frozen earth beneath. As perfectly round as a dinner plate and as unexplainable and out of place as a crop circle in a Wiltshire wheat field, the circle of earth stopped the investigators dead in their tracks.

He shuddered.

Imagine the luck.

Sydney Chen, on jury duty, was carrying the unpublished manuscript of her first novel -- and had found herself seated next to the biggest literary agent in New York. It was too perfect. It was also too good an opportunity not to seize, and she knew it.

The morning's wait seemed interminable, as the jury pool went through endless interviews as part of the jury selection process. It was during a lull in the activity that Sydney worked up the courage to say something to her jury-mate.

"Mr. Sheldon, I couldn't help overhearing your phone call," she'd said, lamely. The conversation had gone on from there. Leonard Sheldon had seemed vaguely uninterested -- even slightly annoyed -- by Sydney, but had perked up when she told him that she'd grown up in Chinatown and, during lunch break, she'd be happy to show him a Mott Street restaurant that few tourists new about but which was a family favorite of hers. Unbelievably, he'd accepted. As they'd walked across Canal Street on the lunch break, Sydney only hoped the sixtyish Sheldon didn't think she was flirting with him. Although . . . was she?

Over an appetizer of the house special, dim sum -- tiny dumpling pockets filled with succulent shrimp and fresh, finely-chopped vegetables with cloud's ear mushrooms -- Sydney had made her move.

Taking a drink of water and daubing her mouth with a napkin, she'd said, "Mr. Sheldon, I suppose you know why I pounced on you." She couldn't believe how forward she was being.

Shoveling a whole dumpling into his mouth with expertly held chopsticks, Sheldon had responded, matter of factly, "Of course I do, Miss Chen. You have a novel in the top drawer, like every other bright, recent Ivy League English major in New York. Right?"

Be prepared. The Boy Scouts motto isn't lost on Sydney. Translation: When you go to lunch with a potential literary agent, carry your novel on floppy disks. In multiple formats, just in case. Doesn't everybody?

"I didn't realize I was quite that much of a cliche," Sydney said, trying to sound more perky than deflated.

"My dear," Sheldon went on, "we're all cliches. The trick is knowing which one you are, and playing it to the hilt. That, in my opinion, is the secret of success in life. Would you pass the chili sauce?"

Sydney obeyed. Sheldon went on.

"Okay," he said, still not looking up from his plate. "Pitch me."

"This sounds like Hollywood," Sydney laughed, glancing at the ridiculously heavy lunch time pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk outside.

"Everything sounds like Hollywood these days," Sheldon laughed. "The clock is ticking, Sydney."

"Okay, okay!" she said. "Here goes."

Sydney went on to summarize, in Reader's Digest Condensed Books style, her daily life at Hillyer, Jones -- the insanities and inanities of life at an ad agency, the characters she's encountered, the possibilities for parody, the hilarious speed and absurd level of intensity with which everyone lived and worked ... and how she'd turned it into a compulsively page-turning satirical novel called "475 Madison Avenue."

"What is it, sort of a Danielle Steele thing?"

Sydney didn't know whether to be pleased or offended.

"Yes and no," she responded, diplomatically.

"How many chapters have you written?" he questioned her, calling for the check. "We've got to get back to City Hall."

Sydney reached down into her Mark Cross carryall and placed the manuscript on the table in front of Sheldon with a thump.

"My God," he said, started. "Am I supposed to schlep that? If only you had it on disk!"

Without hesitating, Sydney pulled four diskettes out of her purse. "I have. Take your pick," she said, fanning the disks before him as though they were playing cards. "Mac or PC format? MS Word or WordPerfect?"