Lewellyn Parent was born in a small town in the southern U.S. in 1942. The schools there offered only a basic education, and most of the people there were content to remain there. Still, magazines, a small local library, radio, and the new medium, television made Lewellyn intensely interested in what was going on outside the small town, and especially in science. Once he learned to read and do arithmetic at school, his ed...

Lewellyn sat down in the lab closet after watching Mina walk into the hallway. He was completely stunned. He looked at the wall clock hanging on the side wall of the lab, and it said 5:37. It had been barely an hour and a half since the class ended, and Mina had leaned forward and touched his hand the first time. He looked at his hand and tried to recreate how the initial touch felt electrical, how warm her hand felt, and...