In spite of what he'd said the medicouncilor probably did have an open mind. "Start with those it's possible to do the most with. Docchi, for instance. With prosthetic arms, he appears normal except for that uncanny fluorescence. Granted that the last is repulsive to the average person. We can't correct the condition medically but we can make it into an asset."

"An asset? Very neat, if it can be done." The medicouncilor's expression said it couldn't be.

"Gland opera," said Cameron, hurrying on. "The most popular program in the solar system, telepaths, teleports, pyrotics and so forth the heroes. Fake of course, makeup and trick camera shots.

"But Docchi can be made into a real star. The death-ray man, say. When his face shines men fall dead or paralyzed. He'd have a tremendous following of kids."

"Children," mused the medicouncilor. "Are you serious about exposing them to his influence? Do you really want them to see him?"

"He'd have a chance to return to society in a way that would be acceptable to him," said Cameron defensively. He shouldn't have specifically mentioned kids.

"To him, perhaps," reflected the medicouncilor. "It's an ingenious idea, doctor, one which does credit to your humanitarianism. But I'm afraid of the public's reception. Have you gone into Docchi's medical history?"

"I glanced at it before I called him in." The man was unusual, even in a place that specialized in the abnormal. Docchi had been an electrochemical engineer with a degree in cold lighting. On his way to a brilliant career, he had been the victim of a particularly messy accident. The details hadn't been described but Cameron could supplement them with his imagination. He'd been badly mangled and tossed into a tank of the basic cold lighting fluid.

There was life left in the body; it flickered but never went entirely out. His arms were gone and his ribs were crushed into his spinal column. Regeneration wasn't easy; a partial rib cage could be built up, but no more than that. He had no shoulder muscles and only a minimum in his back and now, much later, that was why he tired easily and why the prosthetic arms with which he'd been fitted were merely ornamental, there was nothing which could move them.

And then there was the cold lighting fluid. To begin with it was semi-organic which, perhaps, was the reason he had remained alive so long when he should have died. It had preserved him, had 

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