"Perhaps there is still a deal open," muttered Pao Chung. He bowed with sardonic malice toward Teucrete. "We have one possession of greater value than my head or your body. My young friend here--" Teucrete snorted contemptuously. "Him!" But her glance lingered on Ferris momentarily. "What do you mean?" "Ferris is a gamma-man," said Pao Chung. Even Angel gasped with shock. Teucrete's eyes widened in incredulity, horror and fear. III Fear is a subtle poison. It began long ago, in a small New Mexico town, long before there were gamma-men or even interplanetary travel. The fear radiated from mushrooming clouds with impossible radiance at the core, and the fear did more harm to the minds of men than the deadly spectra of invisible death did to their bodies. It began with scientists in cages in the name of national securities; it developed into continual surveillance for all men engaged in atomics. These workers, and their families, led cloistered, monastic lives. They intermarried, since there was little contact with outsiders, and they shared generations of haunted, spy-ridden lives. They lived in the midst of fear and mistrust, while the earth went through its chronic spirals of war and the preparations. Throughout history, scholars and philosophers have warned that knowledge must be free and universal, like sunlight. But there have always been wars and secrets and guarded weapons, and fear is older than man. Scientists were men of dangerous knowledge, of destructive potentials. As such, they were hostages of fear and illusions of safety. They were segregated, guarded, well-fed, and at first provided with all the deadly toys necessary to their amusements. It was all painfully logical and futile, but all the best brains of mankind were locked up to putrefy for lack of fresh air and the stimuli of mutual thoughts. Their knowledges and prerogatives became hereditary. Natural law works against segregation. Artificial isolation of any group leads to misunderstandings, prejudices, resentments, mutual fears, and eventually to violence. Fear-hysteria is a serpent devouring its own tail. In time, the once-honored and glorified gamma-men became feared and hated. In the minds of the ignorant and superstitious populace, they were associated with medieval wizards and workers of dreadful miracles. The threat of gamma groups became a political pawn, and was used as a club to beat down restless, unhappy populations.