Later when the peculiar power of his eyes became known, he was feared a little, resented and cordially hated. Vickers was forced in on himself. He built a shell, a hard flippant armor against the senseless antagonism he met everywhere.
In spite of hysterical predictions and a flood of stories in the science-fiction magazines, the Atomic Age had not ushered in a wave of mutants—at least not radical mutants. Vickers was practically unique.
And alone.
Nevertheless Vickers experienced an odd tingling excitement as he emerged from the lock into Luna City. Beneath his thick layers of protective indifference, he was eager as a boy, friendly, sensitive. A starved gregariousness looked out of his eyes in unguarded moments.
He stood with his back to the wall of an export firm, breathing deeply of the warm, artificially earth-scented air. Through the soles of his feet he could feel the pavement vibrating faintly, as deep inside the bowels of the moon, the mechanical mining worms gnawed out the ore, chewed it, digested it, spat it out as metal ingots.
The voice of the city rolled over him, deafened him. His eyes were bewildered at the crowds jamming the pavement. His pulse leaped. He was like a blind man who has just had his sight restored.
Someone said: "Hello, Vickers," and struck him on the shoulder. "Glad to see you out."
Vickers brought his eyes down. He stared at the man who had addressed him. The look of exaltation slowly faded from his face to be replaced by a puzzled frown.
"I don't know you."
"Oh, come now, surely you recognize me." The man was as big as Vickers, exactly, and the same build. He was clad in a shabby gray suit. There was something tantalizingly familiar about him. Vickers wrinkled his forehead in concentration.