Many years have passed since the Explosion, when hard radiation first caused mutations and led to the decentralization of culture. Strange creatures appeared from areas of radioactive contamination that could not reproduce and died out naturally. Although useful mutations also occurred - many people appeared with telepathic capabilities, but were completely bald.

How difficult and uncomfortable it is for normal people who cannot read other people’s thoughts to live next to such “freaks”. How many generations must change, how much suffering and sacrifice must be endured for both telepaths and ordinary people to feel like one humanity.

The series of stories “Baldy” was first published in full in the collection “Mutant” (1953; under the pseudonym Lewis Padgett). In Russian, the entire cycle was first published in the collection “Valley of the Flame” (St. Petersburg, “North-West”, 1993).