In recent years, few gamma-men had broken out to mingle with the expanding races now peopling and colonizing the frontiers of the solar system. Those few were hunted down like outlaws, and killed with brutal ingenuity.
But a new generation had come among gamma-men, with an urge so passionate and devout they themselves did not understand it. Either some latent folk-memory, or some emotional mutation, urged them to go forth and civilize mankind. In the old books, they tracked down knowledge and made grandiose plans for engineering the renaissance. Realizing their common origin, and longing for more nearly normal lives, they grouped together and made a pact to see some changes made.
Studying history and the other technologies of man, they soon discovered that social, economic and psychological sciences had lagged far behind the other developments. These were the blind spots of mankind, and these led to all the other serious and tragic misdirections of effort. Always, the sons of Adam had struggled to achieve workable systems, and always these systems had broken down or failed at critical moments.
If some means could be found—
Eventually, the means was tracked down from a clue in one of the oldest books. It was not found, but its existence deduced and proved to the satisfaction of the searchers. Somewhere, hidden in a forgotten corner of the solar system, was the missing tool.
This fact settled, it became necessary to locate and use the missing tool.
It was a pitifully small generation. Only seven bright-eyed and high-hearted young men. But that night they broke out of their prescribed boundaries. They went off reservation, and separated in seven directions. Each had a theory, and a hope to be explored.
Without their ident-armbands of platinum with the old Greek letter deeply incised, they resembled any other seven youths picked at random from the teeming multitudes. They could mingle unquestioned, and their studies had prepared them for various tasks to which their forged papers entitled them. But adaptation was not easy.
A single incautious moment could betray them. Even a routine brain wave check would be sufficient to identify the fugitives, for in subtle ways, the gamma-men were different.
Seven young men with a noble purpose, and fanatical hopes in their hearts.