Plot Summary
Jefferson Scanlon, a struggling scientist, is trying, and failing, to develop a cheap and reliable method of generating atomic power. While he is taking a walk to think over his work, he rescues a nineteen-year-old orphan "Tweenie", the off-spring of human and Martian parents, from a gang of teenagers. The Tweenie, Max, had escaped from the orphanage where he was raised following the death of his only friend, a fifteen-year-old Tweenie named Tom. Tweenies are despised and treated as subhuman by the general population, but Scanlon takes pity on Max, and invites him into his home. Max has picked up a scientific education at the orphanage, and within a week his insight helps Scanlon solve his problem and develop a workable atomic power source. Scanlon decides to formally adopt Max as his son.
A year later, Scanlon has become wealthy and famous. He realizes that Max is lonely for others of his kind, and he adopts a young Tweenie woman named Madeline, along with two younger Tweenie girls from Madeline's orphanage. Scanlon decides to use his wealth to adopt all the other homeless Tweenies on Earth, and to establish a town in Ohio, Tweenietown, where they can run their own society free from prejudice. Max and the other Tweenies also assist Scanlon to further scientific developments such as a gravity shield.
Fifty years after the adoption of Madeline and the two girls, Tweenietown is a growing concern, with a population of 1,154. Scanlon asks a government official for help gaining full civil rights for the Tweenies, pointing out that the Tweenies are more intelligent than humans, and will one day be the leading race in the Solar System. After the official leaves, Max convinces Scanlon that the official, far from wanting to help them, now sees the Tweenies as a threat. Max also reveals that the Tweenies have spent the past five years building three interplanetary spaceships, and that they are determined to leave Earth and settle on Venus. Max invites Scanlon to come with them, but Scanlon decides to remain on Earth.
Read more about this topic: Half-Breed (short Story)
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