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The civilization now in jeopardy is all humanity. As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and sky. In our tenure of this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage -- propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soaring passionate intelligence -- the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity. Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet earth. But, up and in the cosmos an inescapable perspective awaits. National boundaries are not evidenced when we view the earth from space. Fanatic ethnic or religious or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our planet as a fragile, blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars. There are not yet obvious signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, and this makes us wonder whether civilizations like ours rush inevitably into self-destruction. I dream about it . . . and sometimes they are bad dreams. In the vision of the dream I once imagined myself searching for other civilizations in the cosmos. Among a hundred billion galaxies and a billion trillion stars, life and intelligence should have arisen in many worlds; some worlds are barren and desolate. On them life never began or may have been extinguished in some cosmic catastrophe. There may be worlds rich in life not yet evolved to intelligence and high technology; there may be civilizations that achieved technology and then promptly used it to destroy themselves; and, perhaps, there are also beings who learn to live with their technology and themselves, beings who endure and become citizens of the cosmos. Immersed in these thoughts, I found myself approaching a world that was clearly inhabited, a world I had visited before. I saw a planet encompassed by light and recognized the signature of intelligence. But, suddenly, darkness -- total and absolute. In my dream, I could read the "Book of Worlds", a vast encyclopedia of a billion planets within the Milky Way. What could the galactic computer tell me about this now darkened world? They must have survived some earlier catastrophe. Their biology was different from ours. High technology. I wondered what those lights had been for; there must have been signs they were in trouble. The possibility of survival in a century -- less than one percent, not very good odds. Communications interrupted. Their world society had failed; they had made the ultimate mistake. I felt a longing to return to earth. The television transmissions from earth rushed past me, expanding away from our planet at the speed of light. Then suddenly -- silence, total and absolute. But the dream was not yet done.