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— the locals had to admit he knew his stuff. He was a strangely birdlike figure, quick of movement and even quicker of mind. Many wondered why he had chosen Abdera over the richer pastures around Central Park. But after ten years of globe-trotting his wife had been ready for a rural life, and so, in fact, had he.
    He soon proved to be a first-class physician, and when the winter sports craze took hold, he was particularly busy with splints and plaster. His practice expanded well beyond the town, and in the late 1970s he took on a young assistant, James Scott. Twenty years after his arrival, Freedman was a leading citizen, visiting physician and psychiatrist at the county hospital, a noted authority on local wildlife — and a deadly poker player.
    His first twenty years in Abdera Hollow ended in 1982, the year the town rocketed from total obscurity to world notoriety in a matter of weeks.
    Since the population of Abdera was no more than fifteen hundred, the loss of seventy-two people in a single “accident” was felt by practically everyone in town. Many were related to at least one of the victims; others had been friends or neighbors. For a week a sense of shock hung over the town. Every encounter, in street or store, occasioned a sharp evaluation of the loss — a mother? — a wife? The media, quick to grasp the drama of the tragedy, did nothing to improve matters.
    Freedman and Scott felt the loss as keenly as did most blood relations. Death was no novelty to them, but the majority of the victims had been patients, and they caught the backlash of the bereaved.
    Some were truly desolate: husbands who realized, far too late, the emptiness of the lives their lost wives had left behind. Others were delighted; Freedman knew of these men through his poker school or his more gossipy friends. Not that he sought dirt. But his respect for any confidence quite naturally attracted secrets. Freedman mentally filed all that he heard, adding to his knowledge of human psychology.
    In the weeks following the “accident” he learned a great deal. Many citizens, lacking lawyers, approached Freedman for advice on possible claims against the airline. Some of them he found sickening, appallingly eager to cash in on the death of a friend or relative. Within a month of Papa Kilo’s disappearance, several promising lawsuits were in progress. The victims would have been astounded at the value their next of kin placed upon them.
    Some were indeed astounded, but that came later. First came the shattering astonishment, the helpless incredulity of their nearest and dearest — and of the world.
     

 
    VIII.
     
    In the first year of the committee’s life nothing remarkable happened. A few small planes, all foreign, were unaccountably lost and stayed lost. But no one can hold his breath forever; tension gradually eased among the ICARUS people.
    The committee tidied up its contingency plan for a third Event, then turned to other aspects of ICARUS. They had done all they could to get a plane safely and discreetly back, but what then? Suppose the news broke, what would the reaction be? Obviously, air travel would suffer a terrible blow. But what else — shock? panic?
    They drafted several scenarios. If a U.S. military plane returned in U.S. controlled airspace, there was a fair chance it could be hushed up. They’d already dealt with that; Case One, Alfa, as it was designated, was pushed aside.
    Case One, Bravo, envisaged a military plane materializing in non-U.S. airspace. The mere idea made them sweat. But Soviet reaction was not the highest priority; the Top Seven would quickly appreciate that it was an Event, not an attack. Or would they? Wouldn’t even those top men suspect a ruse, an attempt to take advantage of ICARUS? And whatever their view might be, was their control tight enough to prevent someone in Soviet Air Defense hacking the plane out of the sky? On balance, though, Soviet response was not a serious problem; whatever happened,