Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net they were different BY NEIL J. KENNEY _Such magnificent gifts as these were undoubtedly intended for Mankind. But those who possess them are rare indeed, while those who fear the unknown are legion_ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] _As secretary, receptionist and general nursemaid to them I took it upon myself to dig back through the news files and get enough clips to tell their history from birth until they opened the school. You've all read it so there's no need to go into details about their strange life and still stranger birth. Nor their magnificent education or still more magnificent gifts. It's true, every bit of it; their telepathic and ESPing powers WORKED. They were the only births like them to survive to maturity and beyond._ _During the last contact I had with them (I was their first and most advanced pupil) it came as pure inspiration to take down their transmissions in the special short, shorthand we developed for use among the pupils and ourselves. What follows may be added to the story told by the news clips, differing only in person. I have added nothing in translation of the notes, leaving the narrative as disjointed as they gave it. The events are as they transmitted them, as they lived them. I was in contact with them until--but read, and when you're through reading do as I do every night._ _Pray._ _And hope--for mankind._ * * * * * Well, Kitten, it seems impossible that three grand, successful years of work could end so suddenly with us lying in a ditch or anticipating, ESPwise, an occasional bullet fired from the guns of friends but there it is. God, what a complicated being this so-called modern man is! He seems to be born cloaked with complexities which get even more complex as he grows. No wonder he has been so long on the road, being engaged in a continual battle between ethics and emotions as he has. So here we are, the bridge, the first rungs of a ladder leading to a new and delightful plane of existence for all mankind, wallowing in the mud of an irrigation ditch instead of glorying in the divine world of the mind. If we can but make them see! Maybe the professors were right when they told us to teach under the protection of the university instead of hardheadedly going out on our own.