First appeared in Edward L Ferman's F&SF. James Frenkel considered it one of Pohl's best.
Summary:
Once life is found on Mars, two hucksters of UFOs (who once considered themselves enemies) find themselves unwanted by the media. They have to come up with a way to remain relevant to the "current" day fascination with true aliens.
Discussion:
The pair team up to uncover how what was discovered on Mars isn't the real deep mystery. They will provide that with their unfalsifiable evidence.
What makes this story work is less the story than how Pohl gets us to care about two men we might not otherwise care about. The shysters gain our empathy and perhaps our cheering on their "fake news" even if we don't agree with what they are doing.
A fine example of Pohl's ability to characterize his people--getting us to savor the more unsavory.
The title may be meant for us to connect what these charalatans do to "sorcery" as Terry Pratchett wanted us to do with his book title Sourcery. However, it is a word for where sauces are made, but this doesn't seem to add much to the tale. Perhaps a sense of this could be stretched to fit the tale.
One weird connection between this story and the "Oprah" vignette in the novel to the story "Sad Screenwriter Sam" is that he refers to the "Great Galactics." Could these be the same characters except made fictionizedz? Or perhaps that Pohl deleted the section is the true conspiracy.
^ joke
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