ose from his fixed position that
scientific breakthroughs could come from any source but the Established
Authority. The possibility that the crackpot fringe could produce such a
break-through panicked him. It _had_ panicked him. He was fleeing
dangerously now through the night, driven by a fear he did not know was
in him.

Inflexibility. This seemed to be the characteristic that marked Baker
and his kind. Defender of the Fixed Position might well have been his
title. With all his might and power, Bill Baker defended the Fixed
Position he had chosen, the Fixed Position behind the wall of
Established Authority.

A blind spot, perhaps? But it seemed more than mere blindness that kept
Baker so hotly defending his Fixed Position. It seemed as if, somehow,
he was aware of its vulnerability and was determined to fight off any
and all attacks, regardless of consequences.

Fenwick didn't know. He felt as if it was less than hopeless, however,
to attempt to change Bill Baker. Any change would have to be brought
about by Baker himself. And that, at the moment, seemed far less likely
than the well-known snowball in Hades.

* * * * *

Fenwick knew he must have dozed off to sleep with the light still on in
the room and Ellerbee's unread book opened over his chest. He did not
know what time it was when he awoke. He was aware only of a suffocating
sensation as if some ghostly aura were within the room, filling it,
pressing down upon him. A wailing of agony and despair seemed to scratch
at his senses although he was certain there was no audible sound. And a
depression clutched at his soul as if death itself had suddenly walked
unseen through the closed door.

Fenwick sat up, shivering in the sudden coolness of the room, but clammy
with sweat over his whole body. He had never experienced such sensations
before in his life. His stomach turned to a hard ball under the flow of
panic that surged through all his nerves.

He forced himself to sit quietly for a moment, trying to release his
fear-tightened muscles. He relaxed the panic in his stomach and looked
slowly about the room. He could recall no stimulus in his sleep that had
produced such a reaction. He hadn't even been dreaming, as far as he
could tell. There was no recollection of any sound or movement within
the house or outside.

He was calmer after a moment, but that sensation of death close at hand
would not go away. He would have been unabl