A Monarch Books Science-Fiction Novel
Published in January, 1963
Copyright (C) 1963 by Ivar Jorgensen
Monarch Books are published by MONARCH BOOKS, INC., Capital Building,
Derby, Connecticut, and represent the works of outstanding novelists and
writers of non-fiction especially chosen for their literary merit and
reading entertainment.
Printed in the United States of America
All Rights Reserved
* * * * *
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.