[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Thrilling Wonder Stories June 1948.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CHAPTER I
Radiant Child
He was about two years old when he first became aware that there wasalways a dim glow of light around him. It was nice, because it shone onthe bright-colored little animals, birds and fishes which were on theinside of his white enameled crib. Even in the daytime he was sometimesaware of the glow. In the afternoons, when the summer sunlight was hotand bright, and his mother would put him into his crib when he wasn'ta bit sleepy, he would lie staring at the little figures. He could seethem plainly, because the pale silver glow was on them.
"But it frightens me, Robert. Our little son—so queer—weird!" Thatwas his mother's murmured voice, as she stood one night with his fatherat the doorway of his dim bedroom.
"It mustn't frighten you, Mary. After all, you're a scientist too."
Then their voices faded as they went back into their own room.
Robert Thome closed their bedroom door. He was a famous experimentalphysicist, and his wife was his assistant. Both of them werescientists. Mary Thome knew, of course, that there were things verystrange about this little son, but she was a mother as well as ascientist, and she had tried to ignore it, even while it terrorizedher. Thome felt that the time had come now when they couldn't ignore itany longer.
"But Robert, that radiance—the way his little body glows in thedark—is like radioactivity."
"It isn't that," Thome said.
A queer opalescent glow kept streaming from the baby's body. WhenSanjan was asleep, it could hardly be seen, even in darkness. The glowgrew stronger when he was awake. And when he was angry, it sharpenedwith a new intensity.
"Not some form of radioactivity?" Mary Thome said. "How do you know?"
Her husband gazed at her solemnly. "I even tried the new Watlingrefinement of the Geiger counter. It showed nothing of radioactivity."
"You've been experimenting on him, Robert?" Mary Thome's voice wasshocked.
"Yes," he agreed. "Why not? We can't ignore it, Mary. But there's noreason why it should frighten us."
"Then if it isn't radioactivity, what is it?"
What indeed? Some sort of power. Something inherent to him. Somethingwhich of course some day science would be able to explain, but nowcould only call an enigma.
And there were other things different about Sanjan Thome. Even now,in infancy, his high cheekbones, thin cheeks and pointed chin wereapparent. At two years old he was talking with an abnormal fluency.Everything about him was precocious. The look of bright, dancingunderstanding in his eyes.
There was that time when Robert Thome had held a bright-colored rattledown into the crib. Sanjan had only been a year old then. He hadreached for the rattle, but not with a normal baby's slow, uncertainfumbling. Instead, his eyes had flashed; his tiny hand had darted outand grasped it with incredible speed and accuracy.
"All his perceptions are swifter than normal, Mary," Thome hadexplained. "The messages his brain sends to his muscles are allspeeded up."
A gifted child. Why should they think of him in terms of somethinggruesome? This small human creature was supernormal—superior. Thechild was a sudden advancement in the slow normal development of thehuman race. It was as though he had jumped the gap of generations. Ahuman ahead of his time.