The First Men

A full version of the story was also included in The Penguin Science Fiction Omnibus (1973) edited by Brian Aldiss.

Fast's story is about how a group of scientists and educators, through a controlled environment, succeed in raising naturally gifted children into "man-plus"—people who possess comparatively super-human abilities.

Their controlled environment, an isolated compound in California comprising 8,000 acres (32 km2), is a government sponsored facility granted for the raising of the children.

The story begins as a series of communiqués between a sister, Jean Arbalaid, and her brother, Harry Felton, recently retired from the military.

Jean and Mark convince the US government to sponsor an experimental program to raise 40 children in a controlled environment, tailored to allow them to reach their full potential.

Next she sends Harry to find a Professor Hans Goldbaum who, before World War II, had written a paper about how he had discovered a set of characteristics in babies that would determine whether or not they would grow to be mentally gifted.

About eighteen years later, a White House operative, Eggerton, summons Harry and inquires him on his knowledge of the work in the compound.

Jean relates that the children usually walk about nude, openly make love with one another, and possess unmatched knowledge in all academic and physical areas.

When meeting with the researchers, who they love, but pity (due to their inferior intelligence and lack of telepathic abilities), only one child is necessary since all can hear and speak through the single representative's mind.

Near the end of the fifteenth year, realizing that their experiment is about to be investigated, Jean worries what may happen to the children, now young adults, when the government discovers them.

In that time, the children, now able to telepathically reach the entire Earth's population, build a defense mechanism which resulted in the gray barrier Eggerton described.