A couple of years ago I was visited by a Slimy Galactic Superoctopus—a being from outer space who, for the occasion, had taken on a female human appearance. Were it not for her spaceship in my garden and a few other details, I would have said she was just a pleasant young woman, very intelligent and pretty. She told me her name was Pallas. She had been writing a galactic PhD thesis on the nature of human mathematics, and we had long discussions on that and other topics. Then Pallas had to pass her exams and she disappeared into the darkness of space. I had little hope of seeing her again. But once more, her tall, white, silent spaceship stood in my garden, and when we met at the garden door, it was as if she had never been away.