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* * * * *

1

It began when a pedestrian got hit by a cab at the corner of 59th Street
and Park Avenue, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.A. No doubt it was the
first motor mishap in the history of creation that reached out among the
stars.

The pedestrian was walking south on Park Avenue, toward Grand Central
Station. He was looking at the upper skeleton of the vast new Pan Am
Building which blocked out the sky in that direction. But he should have
been watching traffic because a yellow cab tagged him neatly and knocked
him across the walk into a clump of pigeons that scattered upward in all
directions.

The cab driver swore. Citizenry gathered. An alert free-lance news
photographer who happened to be passing took the most important shot of
his career. After a while, the ambulance came and the dazed pedestrian
was pointed toward the nearest emergency ward, which happened to be in
the Park Hill Hospital.

The pigeons settled back. The curious went their different ways.

And far out in space, among the yellow pinpoints we call stars, a signal
was registered. The signal was of grave import to those who received it.

The signal said, _Something has gone wrong._

* * * * *

From the springboard of this incident, there emerged several occurrences
of note. The first in sequence took place in the Park Hill Hospital. The
time of that particular ambulance's arrival was 11:15 P.M. At
that hour the harvest of violence in Manhattan was being delivered to
its logical granaries in the form of broken heads, slashed bodies, and
dazed, shock-strained eyes. The examining rooms at Park Hill were full,
and some cases of lesser import were waiting on stretchers and benches
in the corridors.

That was where the pedestrian waited. Unlike others, he was very
patient. He seemed to understand that this sort of thing took time; or
perhaps he didn't. At any rate, he lay staring up at the ceiling,
unmoving, seemingly uncaring, until an intern named Frank Corson stopped
beside his stretcher and looked down at him in moody-eyed weariness.
Then Corson managed a smile.

"Sorry about the service, mister. Full house tonight."

"That's quite all--right."

Corson touched the broken leg. "I can give you a shot if the pain