Read Earth Has Been Found for Free Online Page A

Practically dead on his feet, he was sustained by the thought of the small wad of heavily-scented dollar bills in his jeans — there’s always one or two on any tour prepared to pay for a little synthetic romance. He waited, eager to be gone, sadly eyeing the young blonde. He’d gladly have obliged her free.
    He glanced at his watch. They were late boarding, but he couldn’t go — left to their own devices, some would get themselves locked in lavatories, and one or two were quite capable of winding up back in a Parisian nightclub, on top of the Eiffel Tower, anyplace.
    Some of his untrustworthy flock were also casting calculating glances around, noting nontour passengers — and a dull lot they were. A family of five, the kids an authentic pain in the ass before they even got aboard. Half a dozen glum businessmen, nursing bags stuffed with dirty shirts, and no doubt ulcers as well. These were a familiar and unattractive sight to many a widowed eye.
    The courier checked the airline desk. Autumnal fog had clamped down across half of Europe; connecting flights were late. Fog was approaching de Gaulle, but the plane would be cleared before conditions got marginal. That cheered him.
    *
    Two hours late and four-fifths empty, the giant plane, call sign Papa Kilo , took off. At dawn the pilot reported he was on course, ten minutes behind revised schedule due to head winds.
    And after that, nothing.
    *
    Few people outside of New York State, and not many in it, had ever heard of Abdera Hollow. Legend held that a congressman, desperate for reelection, honored the township with a visit back in the 1890s, and there had been a nasty boardinghouse fire in the twenties. That was about all the excitement this hamlet had seen.
    Abdera began in a shallow hollow or dip, a natural resting place after the long haul uphill from the east. Pallid New Yorkers came for their annual vacations, enjoying a brief bucolic retreat on the edge of the Catskills. By the mid-twenties Abdera had overflowed its hollow; Main Street included a livery stable-cum-gas station, a saloon, three stores, three modest hotels, Mom’s Diner, and a chapel. In the last golden year before the ‘29 crash two more stores, a post office, a barber shop, a mortician’s parlor, and a discreet whorehouse had been added — the latter operating, of course, solely for the convenience of the summer visitors. Those were indeed the days.
    And then the bad times. After the Wall Street debacle, the Depression had sunk its teeth into Abdera, and half the town had gone up for sale. The slow recovery, NRA, and the drift toward war had barely touched the town. And another adversity was making itself felt — air travel. New Yorkers discovered Florida, and as flying became cheaper more and more of them headed south. By 1945, Abdera Hollow’s population was half of what it had been at the turn of the century, and much of Main Street lay derelict. With the departure of the younger folk, only the mortician thrived; and with the closing of the wartime army camp, the whorehouse folded. Abdera eked out a shaky existence from a few faithful vacationers, adulterous weekenders, and agriculture.
    But the wheel turned; someone discovered the Catskills had from time to time a great deal of snow. Winter sports arrived on the New Yorkers’ doorstep and Abdera was back in business.
    One thing did happen in the lean years. There had been a doctor around, a relic of the horse-and-buggy days. The locals got by with him, knowing no better, but it was generally agreed that Abdera was no place to get sick. The old man died, and for a time Abdera did without. Then Mark Freedman, M.D., hung up his shingle.
    Laymen are seldom competent to judge a professional in his specialty — not that it stops them, especially in a community like Abdera. Freedman was totally unlike his predecessor. He was not strong on goose grease and similar homely remedies, nor did he use bourbon as a perfume. But — grudgingly at first