. That would be a start in the right direction."

"An excellent start," said Baker. "The only trouble is you asked for
less than half of what you need. As soon as I get back to the office a
grant for what you need will be on its way."

* * * * *

William Baker stayed in the hospital two more days. Apart from his
family, he asked that no visitors be admitted. He felt as if he were a
new-born infant, facing the world with the knowledge of a man--but
innocent of experience.

He remembered the days before the accident. He remembered how he dealt
with the world in those days. But the methods used then were as
impossible to him now as if he were paralyzed. The new methods, found in
that bright portal to which Sam Atkins had helped guide him, were
untried. He knew they were right. But he had never used them.

He found it difficult to define the postulates he had chosen. The more
he struggled to identify them, the more elusive they seemed to become.
When he gave up the struggle he found the answer. He had chosen a
program that held no fixed postulates. It was based on a decision to
face the world as it came.

He was not entirely sure what this meant. The age-old genetic wisdom was
still available to guide him. But he was committed to no set path. Fresh
decisions would be required at every turn.

A single shot of vaccine could not stem an epidemic. His immunity to the
sickness of his culture could not immunize the entire populace. Yet, he
felt there was something he could do. He was just not sure what it was.

What could a single man do? In other times, a lone man had been enough
to overturn an age. But William Baker did not feel such heroic
confidence in his own capacity.

He was not alone, however. There were the John Fenwicks and the Jim
Ellerbees who were immune to the great Plague. It was just that William
Baker was probably the only man in the world who had ever been infected
so completely and then rendered immune. That gave him a look at both
sides of the fence, which was an advantage no one else shared.

There was something that stuck in his mind, something that Sam Atkins
had said that night when Baker had been reborn. He couldn't understand
it. Sam Atkins had said of the molecular program tape that had been
broken: When you cease to be fearful of Authority, you become Authority.

The last thing in the whole world William Baker wanted now was to be
Authority. But the thought wo