But I'd better tell it from the beginning.

The idea of centaurs-creatures having the head, trunk and arms of a man and the body and legs of a horse-had been around since Ovid's Metamorphoses and Homer's lliad. It was Lucretius who declared that the creature must be mythical because horses reach maturity before humans, and are full-grown at three years of age. The horse would die fifty years before the man. All mis is true enough, but when Professor Hagger of Columbia University returned from me Greek island of Antikythira with a young living centaur early in the 22nd century, a great many preconceptions changed.

Like most everyone else in America, I'd equated centaurs with unicorns and other mythical beasts. Seeing one live on the evening news took some getting used to. Hagger christened the young creature Mark Eques, and set about educating him. It was quite a story for a month or two, during the slow news days of summer, but by fall Professor Hagger and his discovery had faded from view. Mark Eques was living on a farm in upstate New York, staying pretty much out of the public eye. A few years passed before we heard about him again, and this time it was an announcement by Professor Hagger that Mark was about to enter Columbia University, having passed the traditional college entrance examinations. He was even entitled to special consideration by the university, since the government had ruled that Mark was a handicapped human being and not any sort of monster.

Mark found college to be difficult, and by me end of his first year it appeared he was ready to drop out. That was when Roscoe Greene, a scout for the New York Yankees baseball team, contacted Mark, and when I had my first meeting with the boy centaur.