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Machine Learning for Biometrics
Concepts, Algorithms, and Applications
Cognitive Data Science in Sustainable Computing

Machine Learning for

Biometrics
Concepts, Algorithms, and Applications

Edited by

Partha Pratim Sarangi

Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, Seemanta Engineering College,
Jharpokharia, Baripada, Odisha, India

Madhumita Panda
Assistant Professor, Master in Computer Applications, Seemanta Engineering College,
Jharpokharia, Baripada, Odisha, India

Subhashree Mishra
Assistant Professor, School of Electronics Engineering, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar,
Odisha, India

Bhabani Shankar Prasad Mishra

Associate Professor, School of Computer Engineering, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar,
Odisha, India
Dean, School of Computer Engineering, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India

Banshidhar Majhi
Director, IIITDM, Kancheepuram, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Series Editor
Arun Kumar Sangaiah
School of Computing Science and Engineering,Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT),
Vellore, India
Academic Press is an imprint of Elsevier
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Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating
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To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors,
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Contributors

Numbers in paraentheses indicate the pages on which the authors’ contributions begin.
Sumitav Acharya (143), Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National
Institute of Science and Technology, Berhampur, India
A. Anandh (105), Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kamaraj College
of Engineering and Technology, Madurai, India
Saurabh Bilgaiyan (155), School of Computer Engineering, KIIT Deemed to be
University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
P.V.S.S.R. Chandra Mouli (65), Department of Computer Science, Central University
of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur, India
Manisha P. Dale (1), MES College of Engineering, Savitribai Phule Pune University,
Pune, India
Rupam Das (155), School of Electronics Engineering, KIIT, Deemed to be University,
Bhubaneswar, India
K. Devendran (87), Computer Science and Engineering, Kongu Engineering College,
Erode, Tamil Nadu, India
Sachit Dhamija (155), School of Electronics Engineering, KIIT, Deemed to be
University, Bhubaneswar, India
R. Jai Ganesh (129), K. Ramakrishnan College of Technology, Trichy, India
G.K. Kamalam (177), Department of Information Technology, Kongu Engineering
College, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India
Vaishali H. Kamble (1), AISSMS IOIT, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India
M. Kavitha (129), K. Ramakrishnan College of Technology, Trichy, India
P. Keerthika (87,177), Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kongu
Engineering College, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India
Chirag Kyal (29), Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Institute
of Science and Technology, Berhampur, India
K. Logeswaran (177), Department of Information Technology, Kongu Engineering
College, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India
V.M. Manikandan (201), Computer Science and Engineering, SRM University-AP,
Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh, India
R. Manjula Devi (87,177), Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kongu
Engineering College, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India

xiii
xiv Contributors

Bhabani Shankar Prasad Mishra (47,155), School of Computer Engineering, KIIT

Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, India
Subhashree Mishra (47), School of Computer Engineering, KIIT Deemed to be
University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
Samrat Mondal (217), Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian
Institute of Technology Patna, Bihta, India
H. Muthukrishnan (177), Department of Information Technology, Kongu Engineering
College, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India
K. Muthulakshmi (105), Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kamaraj
College of Engineering and Technology, Madurai, India
Madhumita Panda (47), Master of Computer Applications, Seemanta Engineering
College, Jharpokharia, India
Suryakanta Panda (217), Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian
Institute of Technology Patna, Bihta, India
Harsh Poddar (29), Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National
Institute of Science and Technology, Berhampur, India
R. Ramya (105), Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kamaraj College
of Engineering and Technology, Madurai, India
Motahar Reza (29,143), Department of Mathematics, GITAM Deemed to be
University, Hyderabad, India
C. Sagana (87), Computer Science and Engineering, Kongu Engineering College,
Erode, Tamil Nadu, India
M. Sangeetha (87), Computer Science and Engineering, Kongu Engineering College,
Erode, Tamil Nadu, India
Partha Pratim Sarangi (47,87), School of Computer Engineering, KIIT Deemed to be
University, Bhubaneswar, India
Priyanshu Sarmah (155), School of Electronics Engineering, KIIT, Deemed to be
University, Bhubaneswar, India
K. Sentamilselvan (177), Department of Information Technology, Kongu Engineering
College, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India
P. Suresh (87,177), Department of Information Technology, Kongu Engineering
College, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India
S. Venkatesh (105), Microland, Bengaluru, India
Dilip Kumar Yadav (65), Department of Computer Applications, National Institute of
Technology, Jamshedpur, India
Gaurav Yadav (65), Department of Computer Applications, National Institute of
Technology, Jamshedpur, India
Preface

The biometric systems automatically recognize the identity of a person by using

his/her physiological and behavioral characteristics. The improvement in sensor
technology attracts many researchers’ attention to introduce a number of new
biometric traits for providing privacy and security in various applications rang-
ing from industrial to healthcare systems. In the last decades, with the aim of
improving the recognition performance, a large number of machine learning
algorithms have been presented in numerous biometric applications. The signif-
icance of machine learning algorithm is to determine the identity of individuals
by associating biometric patterns with their respective enrolled users. However,
in high-security applications, security and recognition accuracy are major con-
cerns that can be addressed by designing multimodal biometric systems. As the
name depicts, multimodal biometrics incorporates two or more different bio-
metric characteristics (for example, fingerprint, iris, face, plamprint, etc.),
which works in the similar way like unimodal biometrics except an extra mod-
ule of information fusion. Due to the increasing number of biometric systems
and their applications, a profound amount of research and developments are still
required in this field of biometrics.
So far, a numerous biometric systems are exhibiting limited identification
rate or accuracy in unconstrained scenarios due to the poor quality of image
acquisition that includes poor contrast, varying illumination, and
noncooperation by users. These challenges encourage many researchers to work
in its diverse segments such as extracting discriminative features, employing
efficient classifiers, and fusion of information at different stages of the multi-
modal biometric systems. Furthermore, another direction of research is to pro-
vide security to the biometric information system in case of online mode of
identity recognition of individuals in many applications. This book covers
the most recent research progresses in the field of biometrics to enhance recog-
nition performance and security problems in several applications, such as online
transaction, e-commence, access control, law enforcement, boarder security,
healthcare, and so on.
In this book, we specifically address the current research progress in the
field of biometrics and biometric-based applications with the objective of
improving personal identity recognition performance. This book comprises
12 chapters, in which each chapter delivers the concepts and fundamentals of
a recent topic on biometrics, presents reviews on up-to-date methodologies,

xv
xvi Preface

reveals results, and compares with state-of-the-art, highlighting its effectiveness

in the recognition and future directions. Furthermore, the contents of this book
are organized according to the well-accepted biometric traits and a few novel
ones along with biometric security and recent applications, so that each chapter
can be read autonomously from the others. A concise and chapter-wise intro-
duction of this book is described below.
Chapter “Machine Learning Approach for longitudinal face recognition of
children” presents a novel application of identity recognition of children using
the face biometric trait. Face recognition of children below 6 years of age helps
to identify children for their healthcare services and investigation of missing
children. In this chapter, the authors developed a new face database in which
they collected face images of the individual over a period of time, especially
at a gap of few months, and named it as longitudinal face database. Extensive
experiments are performed using different machine learning classifiers such as
support vector machine (SVM), K-nearest neighbor (KNN), logistic regression
(LR), decision tree, Gaussian Naive Bayes, and convolutional neural networks
(CNN). Comparison of experimental results demonstrates the effectiveness and
superiority of the proposed method using CNN with improved accuracy.
Finally, the authors suggest to increase the database size and improvement in
the model as some possible research directions in future.
Chapter “TBFR: Thermal Biometric Face Recognition—A Noncontact Face
Biometry” proposes a novel thermal face recognition method to diminish the
effect of varying light intensity, poses, accessories, aging, etc. of the existing
face biometric systems. In this chapter, the authors fused face geometry features
with pretrained ResNet-50 features to improve recognition performance, and
experimental results revealed the proposed method to be more robust in com-
parison with the existing methods.
Chapter “Multimodal Biometric Recognition using Human Ear and Profile
Face: An Improved Approach” discusses an improved approach for ear biomet-
rics based on fusion of ear and profile face-handcrafted features at the feature-
level fusion and score-level fusion schemes. Recently, some convolutional neu-
ral network models have been proposed for ear biometrics, and their experiment
results show competent performance compared to state-of-the-art methods.
However, deep-learning-based biometrics applications need a large number
of training images, huge memory for data processing, and enormous computa-
tional complexity at the cost of improving the identification rate. In this chapter,
the authors focus on a multimodal approach based on ear and profile face, to
enhance the recognition performance with less processing complexity. Several
experiments with comparisons are performed to test the effectiveness and supe-
riority of the proposed approach.
Chapter “Statistical Measures for Palmprint Image Enhancement” provides
the overview of image enhancement methods and their quality measurements in
palmprint images. In the palmprint image enhancement techniques, the most
widely used databases are discussed with further details. However, the image
 Preface xvii

enhancement plays an important role in the preprocessing step of biometric sys-

tems to provide a better recognition performance in terms of accuracy and
identification rate.
In chapter “Retina Biometrics for Personal Authentication,” an attempt is
made to explore the retina biometrics using the ANFIS model. In this chapter,
ANFIS-based Retina Biometric Authentication System (ARBAS) for person’s
authentication and its significance are discussed. Besides, this chapter provides
readers with the required amount of knowledge to select suitable features’ set
and adequate techniques to develop robust research in this field.
Chapter “Gender Recognition from facial Images using Multi-Channel
Deep Learning Framework” demonstrates Multi-Channel Deep Learning
Framework based on an automated gender recognition approach. In this work,
the authors try to extract discriminative features from raw facial images from
GoogleNet. They fuse feature vectors obtained from two sources: first, feature
vectors are obtained from featured images generated from LDP filters and sec-
ond, feature vectors are directly obtained from raw facial images, and then both
are separately applied as inputs to GoogleNet. Finally, the feature sets are com-
bined together using CCA/DCA to provide input to SVM classifier for gender
recognition of the given input image. A series of experiments are conducted,
and a comprehensive explanation of experimental results is illustrated.
Chapter “Implementation of Cardiac Signal for Biometric Recognition from
Facial Video” discusses the Heartbeat Signal from Facial Video (HSFV) as a
biometric evidence for recognizing the identity of individuals. This chapter
impacts researchers to get motivation and knowledge toward working in a novel
direction in the field of biometrics.
Chapter “Real-Time Emotion Engagement Tracking of Students using
Human Biometric Emotion Intensities” describes an automatic method to detect
an absent-minded face present in a class using FAU (Facial Action Unit). Fur-
thermore, this chapter covers multiple aspects of tracking, ranging from the stu-
dent entering the classroom. Experimental results presented by the authors can
achieve excellent results for emotion detection and recognition of students’ face
images.
Chapter “Facial Identification Expression Based Attendance Monitoring
and Emotion Detection—A Deep CNN Approach” discusses the challenges
of taking attendance and gauging emotions of the students in a new online class-
room environment. In this chapter, with the help of advance machine learning
approach, the authors introduce an automatic biometric-based attendance and
facial expression recognition system.
Chapter “Contemporary Survey on Effectiveness of Machine and Deep
Learning Techniques for Cyber Security” reviews the practicality of biometrics
in cyber security based on efficient machine learning and deep learning tech-
niques. The objective of this survey is to provide an impact on readers to acquire
the fundamental concepts of biometric authentication and identification using
different machine learning techniques for cyber security systems.
xviii Preface

Chapter “A Secure Biometric Authentication System for Smart Environ-

ment using reversible Data Hiding through Encryption Scheme” introduces
the notion of reversible data hiding (RDH) scheme to achieve a secure online
biometric data communication. In a RDH-based encryption scheme, the bio-
metric images are encrypted by hiding the important information in an image.
In this chapter, the author presents a new model wherein the compressed finger-
print data is used as a secret message, and it will be embedded into the face
image through a reversible data hiding-based encryption scheme. In order to
maintain secure communication, encrypted image obtained after RDH scheme
is transmitted to the cloud service provider in a secure manner.
Chapter “An Efficient and Untraceable Authentication Protocol for Cloud
Based Healthcare System” provides Telecare Medical Information System
(TMIS), which is very important in pandemic situations, for example, Covid-
19. In this technique, the patient’s mobile device has a major role for commu-
nicating with doctors. Furthermore, mutual authentication and key agreement
scheme is required to protect vital information from any kind of mischief activ-
ities from adversaries in the insecure communication channel. In this chapter,
the authors propose a biometric hashing technique to provide secure authenti-
cation and key agreement for communication between the patient and
the doctor.
Finally, we hope that our readers including the graduate students, research
scholars, young researchers, academicians, and industrial professionals find the
contributed chapters in this book thought-provoking, and this piece of work will
motivate future research breakthrough to progress further advances in the
machine learning-based biometrics applications.

Partha Pratim Sarangi

Madhumita Panda
Subhashree Mishra
Bhabani Shankar Prasad Mishra
Banshidhar Majhi
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Acknowledgments

The editors would like to gratefully acknowledge all of the contributors for con-
tinuous effort and timely submission of their chapters. This book would not
have been feasible without the cooperation of the chapter authors. All the chap-
ters have been reviewed for several rounds to facilitate the selection of final
chapters in our book. Valuable suggestions and guidance from the reviewers
helped the authors in refining individual chapters. Thanks also go to the
reviewers in enhancing the quality of the chapters of this book.
The editors would like to extend gratitude to Sonnini Ruiz Yura from
Elsevier for inspiration over the year. We would like to gratefully acknowledge
Andrae Akeh and Judith Clarisse Punzalan (Elsevier) for their patience during
the preparation of this book. In addition, we shall thank Swapna Srinivasan at
Elsevier for her sincere help and patience during the final preparation of this
book. Finally, we shall extend gratefulness to our family members and friends
for all their support.

xix
Chapter 1

Machine learning approach

for longitudinal face recognition
of children
Vaishali H. Kamblea and Manisha P. Daleb
a
AISSMS IOIT, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India, bMES College of Engineering,
Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India

1 Introduction
Face of an individual is a popular and well-accepted biometric trait that can be
used to perform identity recognition of adults as well as children. Children are
the most valuable and jeopardy group in society; hence they should be under
supervision continuously. Security and healthcare of children is an important
aspect of all countries [1]. Automatic recognition of children using their face
is a useful investigative tool to help identify missing children. Though the
development of the face of a child starts in the mother’s womb from 3 months,
it is not proportional to the development of other parts of the body. Therefore,
recognition of children below 6 years is still an open research problem. Children
recognition using different modalities needs to be studied to solve the problems
related to security and healthcare. As per the literature survey, still there is not
even one commercial biometric system in use for recognition of toddlers. Var-
ious researchers have discussed about biometric recognition of adults; however,
very few papers on toddlers are available. A meager amount of work has been
traced in biometric identification of toddlers or children. It is most challenging
to recognize a toddler from his own single photograph after a few months. But,
in some instances, such as missing children, we have only the face image. So,
the recognition of children from their face image is very important. Facial
images can be acquired without users’ active involvement using ordinary cam-
eras from a distance. Also in survey, we noted that that most of the toddler’s
biometric recognition is in verification mode.
Sahar Siddique studied longitudinal face recognition using the Extended
Newborn Database and Children Multimodal Biometric Database. Identifica-
tion accuracy achieved using CNN is 62.7% and 85.1% on both the databases,

Machine Learning for Biometrics. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-85209-8.00011-0

Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1
2 Machine learning for biometrics

respectively [2]. Rowden et al. studied the longitudinal face recognition of chil-
dren between 0 and 4 years of age. The same-session accuracy they achieved is
93% and cross-session accuracy 43% after 6 months [3]. Local Binary Pattern
(LBP) is widely used texture-based method for recognition of face biometrics
[4]. This method is also used for children face recognition [5,6].
This chapter is presenting a machine learning and deep learning approach
for face recognition of children. As per the literature review, the study of chil-
dren recognition with the help of their face modality started in 2010 in India
[5,6]. Most of the papers studied same-session face recognition. The meager
amount of work is carried out longitudinally, that is, images of the same subject
taken over a period of time. There are very few readily available databases for
newborns like FG-NET [7]. There are very few images of children below
5 years in these datasets. CMBD database of IIIT Delhi (India) [8] is one of
the children longitudinal face recognition databases, but due to security reasons
the face database is not publicly available [9]. Therefore, database collection is
the major task in infants and toddler’s recognition. For this study, the database
of 81 subjects for the same session and 48 subjects for the cross session is col-
lected. The span between the data acquisition sessions is 3–6 months. The major
stages of the proposed work are preprocessing of face images, which include
manually cropping of face images of size 120
120 and converting it into gray
scale. Feature extraction is based on principal component analysis and linear
discriminant analysis, and CNN is proposed. The classification of subjects is
done using machine learning classifiers on the children database of the same
session and cross session. Further, the work is extended using convolutional
neural network (CNN) in which we have proposed our own optimized model
with data augmentation used to compare the machine learning and deep learn-
ing classifiers on our database.
The major contributions of the proposed work are as follows.
1. Due to the nonavailability of reference databases for children below 6 years,
the collection of longitudinal databases of children faces itself is a great
challenge. In the proposed work, we have captured the face images of tod-
dlers with the mobile camera of resolution 20 MP, with consent from their
parents in two sessions. Time period between two sessions is 2 months to
1 year. In the same session, 730 images of 81 toddlers are taken. In the sec-
ond session, 485 images of 48 toddlers are captured.
2. In this chapter, we are proposing feature extraction using PCA, LDA, and
CNN approaches on the facial images and their comparative study. In PCA
and LDA approaches, we have applied different machine learning tech-
niques for classification of subjects, such as Support Vector Machine
(SVM), Logistic Regression (LR), Gaussian Naive Bayes, K-Nearest
Neighbors (KNN), Decision Tree, and Random Forest. In CNN, feature
extraction is done by convolution layers and classification is done by dense
layers.
 Machine learning approach Chapter 1 3

3. In this work, we implemented CNN from basic level to optimized level.

First, CNN is of three convolution layers for the same session and cross ses-
sion. Further, the CNN is modified in terms of data augmentation, and six-
layer convolution model is used with L2 kernel regularization and batch
normalization for enhancing the accuracy.
4. We compare the effectiveness of different feature extraction and classifica-
tion techniques in identification mode. Further, we optimize the CNN for
our children database to increase the accuracy. We compare the recognition
performance of the proposed CNN with the conventional PCA- and LDA-
based method using classification technique.

2 Face modality for children face recognition

Human beings can be recognized using its inherent biological feature’s analysis
and measurement. Science of recognizing human beings with the help of its bio-
logical features is called biometrics.
Biometric recognition is based on two prominent characteristics of human
beings:
(1) Physiological characteristics: face, fingerprint, iris, palmprint, footprint,
palm vein, ear, DNA, etc.
(2) Behavioral characteristics: voice, gait, signature, etc.
Indian biometrics market survey graph about the usage of different biometric
modalities for the year 2019 is shown in Fig. 1.
As per biometric market fingerprint is widely used for recognition of human
beings. Children’s fingerprints are tiny, and are not easy to capture. The second-
largest used biometric modality is face. Face images are easy to capture and

Indian Biometrics Market In US $ Million, 2019

54.8
27.8 80.5
307.4
Fingerprint Recognition
Facial Authentication
IRIS Recognition
Voice Recognition
Palm Recognition
Others
448.2
1679.4

FIG. 1 Indian biometric market share in US million [10].

4 Machine learning for biometrics

useful in the case of missing children. Therefore, we are using face biometrics
for recognition of children. An example of different biometrics of children from
our database is shown in Fig. 2.
Human face is a 3D model, we can recognize it by its features such as eyes,
shape of face, and color. Automatic face recognition is based on 2D photo-
graphs of a person. In 1964 and 1965, Woody Bledsoe, along with Helen Chan
and Charles Bisson, recognized human faces using computers for the first time.
Nowadays adult face recognition achieves very high accuracy in the range of
99.63% [11]. Face recognition of children is still an open challenge. All face
recognition algorithms evaluate on false negative identification rate (FNIR)
which is dependent on age. The FNIR of children is higher as compared to
adults or seniors. The comparison of FNIR and false positive identification rate
(FPIR) is given in Table 1 for various stages of child age.
Child face development: Studies from the paper by Farkas discuss that in
the first 2 years of a child face development, mouth width of child increases
whereas mouth height decreases. Mouth shape alters from “rosebud-like” to
a more adult type. Growth of facial features is very fast in the first year, less
rapid in the second year. Subsequent changes were slow and irregular from
the age of 3 to 9 years [12].

Face Footprint Fingerprint

FIG. 2 Different biometrics for recognition of children.

TABLE 1 Comparison of FNIR and FPIR of children for

different age.

Subjects FNIR FPIR

Babies 0.7 0.2
Kids 0.4 In between 0.2 and 0.05
Pre-teen 0.29 0.05
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Author: James Causey

Illustrator: Leo Summers

Release date: March 1, 2019 [eBook #58991]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INHIBITION ***

INHIBITION
 BY JAMES CAUSEY

Regardless of scientific attainment, any

culture
is vulnerable to inhibition. And Saxon was a
good
agent; no culture nor individual would sway
his
loyal appraisal....

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Planetfall.
Here the forest was green and cool. A soft, damp wind promised
rain. The colonists moved down the ramp, staring at the crew
members piling crates of supplies in the meadow beyond.
Frowns. Then whispers.
Saxon glanced up. His nostrils flared. "Hurry," he told the crewmen,
and came forward, beaming. He was tired. It showed in his feverish,
too-bright smile as he said, "Afraid Engineering's a little behind
schedule. They'll be here tomorrow morning to erect your city.
Tonight you'll have to rough it."
Reactions varied. The women murmured and moved closer to their
men. Some smiled. One man thoughtfully eyed the mounting
pyramid of supplies.
"You're getting a choice world, Jarl," Saxon said, clapping him on the
shoulder. "Survey spent thirty years here, balancing the ecology,
wiping out the bugs and carnivores. Eden." Saxon tasted the word
like wine.
Jarl Madsen's face was stone. "Aren't they all named Eden?"
From the forest came a chittering bark, like anthropomorphic
laughter. Saxon shivered, remembering the thing that chittered, the
three-inch fangs and the talons. "Hardly," he lied. "That, incidentally,
was a Narl. Herbivore, very harmless."
Madsen walked past him, towards the supplies.
Saxon moved among the colonists, shaking hands, congratulating,
speaking of green fields and good crops and a virgin planet where
every man could carve an empire. These last moments were the
worst, when you said goodbye, knowing that thirty percent of them
would be dead within the week. He saw Madsen opening a supply
case. Damn him! Just three more minutes!
The last crew member dumped his load and hurried into the airlock.
Saxon started casually after him, too late. Madsen stood there, his
grin taut, nailed on.
"Primitive pre-fab shelters," he said thickly. "Axes and seeds! The
city was a lie. We're on our own, is that it? Why—"
Saxon's palm flashed and Madsen fell writhing. There were shouts,
hands clawing at him as he tore free, sprinting for the ship.
Always running, he thought bitterly. I'm getting old.

He walked through the silent corridors of the ship, a lonely figure in

the black uniform of the Inhibition Corps, and once he stared
through the porthole at Eden XXI, a mottled sphere receding into
the star-frosted night. His mouth twisted. Conceive a colony in fear,
breed it in terror. Watch it adapt, grow. If it grows too fast, hurt it.
Hurt it with disease, famine, dictatorship. If it keeps growing—
destroy it.
The captain came down the corridor and stood at respectful
attention before the black uniform. "Stereo call, Commander. Prime
Base."
Saxon slowly went to his cabin. The stereo panel was flashing steady
crimson to designate top priority and he restrained a savage impulse
to shut the thing off. He slumped in the control chair, and the tri-di
image of a man at a desk slowly coalesced. It was a granite-featured
old man with eyes like blue ice, and Saxon's head snapped sharply
erect. It was Primus Gant, Corps Director. At ninety parsecs Gant's
features were slightly hazed, but his voice was clear, sharp as a
sword.
"Report, Commander."
"My extrapolation went through an hour ago. Also my resignation."
Nothing moved in Gant's face or his eyes. Saxon said stiffly,
"Planetfall uneventful. Area inimical. Initial shock conception,
probable God-betrayal mythology by fourth generation. Those things
in the forest should get thirty percent of them the first week.
Weaponless, they'll run. The two to one female ratio should make for
an agricultural matriarchy by the sixth generation. Recommend
intermittent check at that time." He took a slow angry breath. "Why
didn't we give them weapons?"
Gant's smile was acid. "Because we haven't yet tried an agricultural
matriarchy, Commander. Because the lower the initial survival factor,
the slower the culture development. Getting squeamish?"
Saxon said doggedly, "They didn't have a chance."
"Neither did twenty million people on Earth in the last atomic war."
The Director's voice was soft. "All colonists volunteer. Some have a
vision. Others have a latent power drive that stasis can't satisfy.
They're misfits regardless, potential threats to stasis. Remember
your last leave, Commander? I believe you met my son."
Saxon nodded curtly. He remembered the Director's son as a quiet,
soft-spoken youth with the yearning for far places in his eyes.
"I had hoped he would qualify for the Corps." Gant looked suddenly
old, tired. "Instead he's volunteering for Colonial Service. Did you
ever lose a son, Commander?"
They stared at each other across the humming emptiness and Saxon
finally whispered, "I'm sorry."
"Stasis is all we can afford," the Director said numbly. "Man can't
have Utopia yet. Because he's still—Man. Perhaps he'll never have it.
But by God he'll try! Resignation withdrawn?"
Saxon nodded. He could not speak.
"I'm glad. The ship's captain had orders to burn you down had you
refused." Gant's face was wooden. "Inhibition agents never quit,
they just die in harness. You'll take the lifeboat to Eden XI for sixth
generation check. Good hunting, Commander."
The image faded. Saxon sat for a long time, staring into the
darkness.

Eden XI was three parsecs distant, near Algol. For the next ten
hours Saxon paced the marvelously equipped lifeboat and absorbed
data from the robot recorder. He stared at the hard crystal ache of
the stars and thought of the Director's son. He thought about the
shining cities of Earth, and about stasis.
Stasis meant—control.
It meant control of a billion people, a rigid planetary economy. It
meant the Assassination branch of the Corps. Assassination
(carefully contrived to appear accidental) took care of those few
malcontents who were either too smart or too stupid to sign up for
colonization. It meant a gradual weeding out of the unsane, the
power-mad, it meant learning the true meaning of sanity and peace
and racial brotherhood.
And it meant the stagnation of science, a thick film of dust gathering
on the textbooks of the military tactician, and warships rotting at
anchor. It meant the white spire of the Stasis Administration Center
at New Washington, and the words graven over the golden portals:
Know thyself, Man. Or die!
Was the dream worth it?
Or was Man doomed to die like a brawling ape, playing with
lightning?
Saxon could not answer.
Meanwhile the colonies had to be inhibited. One interplanetary war
could smash the fragile structure so painstakingly built over the last
few hundred years. This was the turning point, the final cross-roads
of Man's destiny.
Saxon smiled bleakly.
Ultimately there would be a colony they could neither inhibit or
destroy. The adaptive ultimate. That colony would be Man no longer,
but Homo Superior.
But by then, it wouldn't matter.

The lifeboat came in on the night side of Eden XI, and hung above
the blue mountains like a basking shark. Saxon checked his
coordinates. This had been the original landing site, almost two
hundred years ago. He switched the infra-view on maximum, and
began to cruise in widening spirals. These sixth generation hops
were usually routine. If nomadic, a few political shifts could help
warp the culture into a set pattern. A simple matter to play the
visiting deity, pick one warped psychotic, and invest him with power.
A dictatorship was by far the best way of inhibiting a young culture.
Agricultural city-states were almost as easy. Designate a particular
crop as sacred, kill the rotation program, impoverish the land,
introduce serfdom.
By dawn, Saxon found what he was looking for. A row of cleared
fields and a farmhouse. He reconnoitered a hundred miles farther
and frowned. There was no clump of dwellings, no sign of a village
trading community.
He brought the ship down in a forest three miles away from the
farmhouse and camouflaged it to look like a great mossy boulder. He
spent the entire morning testing the atmosphere and the soil with a
savage patience. In the early years of the Corps, virus mutations had
taken a fearful toll of intermittent spotters.
Finally he discarded his uniform and selected a pair of homespuns
from the ship's wardrobe locker. Under the homespuns reposed his
utility kit, a miniature arsenal.
Late that afternoon he emerged from the forest and stood at the
edge of the cleared fields, a weatherbeaten itinerant, obviously
willing to chop wood for a meal. Abruptly his jaw muscle twitched.
The scene was pastoral, perfect.
The man, plowing the south forty. The little girl, playing in the
shadow of the sleepy farmhouse.
But no beast pulled that plow. A giant of a man with power and
intelligence stamped on his bronze features pushed the plow by
hand, in a die-straight furrow.
The little girl was blonde and elfin. She wore sandals, her tunic was
brief and plain. She was playing follow-the-leader—
With a robot.
The robot was tall. The sun struck sparks from its steel carapace as
it lumbered after the girl. Saxon stood frozen as she came flying
towards him in a burst of tossing blond hair and laughter, as she saw
him and came to a dead halt.
"Hello," Saxon said. He tried to smile.
"Hello." Her inflection was slurred. After six generations, naturally.
Her blue eyes sparkled. "Foot-sore, stranger?"
The words had the cadence of a ritual greeting. Saxon stared at the
robot and said carefully, "Yes."
"He's only a primer model," she said, following his gaze. "Next year
when I'm twelve Father promised to install secondary circuits. My
name's Veena. What's yours?"
Saxon introduced himself, as the giant at the plow came forward. His
white smile was a benediction, his voice a lambent organ. "Welcome,
rover. Haven't seen one of you in months. I'm Lang. Agricultural
hobbyist. You'll stay?"
His tone was almost pleading. Saxon nodded inarticulately, followed
them towards the farmhouse. His hands were shaking.
The interior of the house was—dimensionless.
For a moment Saxon thought he was still outside. A silver brook
tinkled through the mossy carpet that was the floor. The south wall
was a golden vista of ripe wheat rippling in the warm breeze that
ruffled his hair. Birds twittered in the sun-flecked foliage overhead.
"Nice house," Saxon said numbly.
Lang's smile was different. "A bit pretentious, I'm afraid. Grandfather
built it right after the landing. We've been too lazy to do much
remodeling. A remarkable man, Grandfather."
That explained it, Saxon thought in relief. One titan in an infant
colony, warping it into a Utopian mold, passing on the heritage of his
genius. How long, he wondered coldly, before they built starships
and returned to demolish the Earth which had exiled them?
"It must be wonderful to be a rover," Veena said wistfully. "Lang, can
I go with him when he leaves?"
"You haven't completed Basic Ecology. Mentor's waiting for your
afternoon session."
Veena pouted and went outside to her robot. Lang grinned. "The
precocious brat's beginning to ask him questions he can't answer.
Soon I'll have to install a few more circuits."
Saxon shivered. Regardless of scientific attainment, any culture is
vulnerable to inhibition.
So said his agent's handbook.
Later he met Veena's mother, Merl, a handsome woman with calm
gray eyes who served them dinner by firelight. It was a good dinner.
These colonists seemed like good people. A shame they qualified for
inhibition.
Gently, Saxon began to probe.
In only six generations the colonists has scattered throughout the
entire hemisphere. Although the matrix of their culture seemed to be
the individual family unit, they lived according to whim. Some lived
in small communal groups. Some lived alone. Some, by choice, were
wanderers, rovers. They had science. Their philosophy seemed
nebulous, based on a benevolent ecology, brotherhood with all living
things.
Saxon frowned.
Six generations ago, the ecology on this world hardly had been
benevolent for man. This area of the continent had been a steaming
marsh, swarming with hungry saurians. Now it was all meadow and
forest.
Saxon said thoughtfully, "Have you ever felt the need for
organization? For a leader?"
He leaned back and waited for the seed to sprout. Two years ago on
Eden VIII, near Rigel, he had said the same thing to a sixth-
generation shaman, and it took scarcely a month for the shaman to
start an intra-tribal war.
But now the seed fell on sterile ground. Lang said, "I don't
understand. Any problem which cannot be solved at family level is
referred to the annual council."
"A leader." Saxon was patient. "One strong man to represent
everybody. To settle all problems as he sees fit?"
"Remember, Father?" Veena prodded. "Those arboreal cannibals
Grandfather used to mention? They had a nomadic tribal culture
based on brute strength."
Lang nodded somberly. "Good analogy. The most favorable
extrapolation indicated a racial life expectancy of only ten thousand
years. Their emotional stability index was nil, they would eventually
have destroyed themselves. The first generation decided it would be
more merciful to exterminate them. An unwise decision, I think."
He launched into a spirited ethnological discussion with Veena, and
Saxon sat, numbly.
They had no emotional insecurity to feed, no power-hunger. No herd
instinct to pervert, nothing to utilize as destruction potential.
No cultural weakness.
The room they gave him was small and comfortable. For a time he
lay on the sleeping hammock, considering the situation. He was
beginning to like them. That in itself, was dangerous.
The house was very still.
He got quietly out of the hammock and crept towards the door. He
had to get back to the lifeboat, to feed facts into the monitor.
One thing disturbed him.
According to his agent's handbook, family-group anarchies didn't
need inhibition.
He was halfway across the plowed field when Mentor's iron voice
said, "Good evening."
Moonfire glimmered on metal. The robot stood impassively before
him. Saxon said slowly, "I was just going for a walk."
"You are our guest: I shall walk with you."
"I prefer to walk alone."
"Guests prefer company. The house of Lang must observe the basic
amenities."
Was there a hint of sardonicism in Mentor's voice?
They walked along the furrows, man and robot. Saxon felt beneath
his shirt for the utility kit. He kept his voice level.
"Am I a prisoner?"
"You are a guest."
"Did Veena tell you I might try to escape?"
A pause, while relays clicked silently.
"That is classified information."
Saxon's fingers were steady as they touched his tiny blaster.
Benevolent anarchy indeed! He said carefully, "Do the colonists
resent their exile?"
Another pause. Mentor's voice was a flat drone. "The concept is
meaningless, the question invalid."
Like hell it is, thought Saxon, and fired.
A cold blue wash of energy illuminated the robot. For a moment
Saxon was blinded. When vision returned he saw Mentor standing
immobile, unscathed.
"Please go back to bed," the robot said.
Saxon went back to bed.

Next morning Veena brought him breakfast. She seemed sad,

withdrawn. "Lang and Merl went to visit Aunt Tarsi. She lives near
the Equator. They won't be back till evening."
"How" Saxon had trouble breathing. "How did they go?"
"By transmitter, of course." She indicated a large shimmering
platform in one corner. "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot rovers hate the
mention of any type of gadgetry." Her eyes grew impossibly earnest.
"But we try to achieve some kind of balance, really. Once when I
suggested that Father let Mentor help him plow the fields, he got
furious."
Saxon restrained wild laughter. First the robot, invulnerable to atomic
energy, now a matter transmitter.
Yet they plowed their own fields.
"Veena," he said.
She looked up at him.
"Why did you tell Mentor to keep me here?"
She bowed her bright head. Her blue eyes were brimming.
"Why, Veena?"
"Because I like you," she sniffled. "I wanted you to s-stay." Abruptly
she fled from the room.
He stood bleakly looking after her. After a time he went outside and
struck across the field towards the forest.
This time the robot did not stop him.

Do not allow the emotional charm of any culture, nor any individual
of that culture, to sway your inhibition appraisal.
In the narrow confines of the lifeboat he repeated the quotation
grimly. Good inhibition agents are inflexible. He was a good agent.
For almost an hour he fed data into the monitor tapes. Then he
touched a stud and closed his eyes, waiting for judgment.
"Agricultural family-group societies are normally stagnant," the
monitor droned. "Such cultures, regardless of technological level, do
not warrent inhibition of any type. Reference: twelfth generation
check on Eden V."
The room spun. Saxon whispered, "But they have cybernetics,
matter transmitters."
"Regardless of technological level." The monitor was adamant.
This was madness. Saxon wiped his forehead and said, "Assuming
geographical isolation no barrier to united group action in the event
of emergency."
"United action is incompatible with family-group."
"Assume and advise!"
Relays chattered. Abruptly the entire panel flashed crimson. The
monitor spoke one word.
"Annihilation."
Saxon referred to his Inhibition handbook. He had never annihilated
a culture before.
One hour later he went into the forest. Birds sang overhead. The
sun dappled him in light and shadow. He stalked a small furry
quadruped that squealed at him from a log and brought it down with
his sonic pistol.
Back in the lifeboat he watched the animal regain consciousness in
an air-tight tank, and very slowly he pulled a lever. A green vapor
rolled into the tank. The quadruped screamed. The green vapor fed.
It was the penultimate in sporedom, yet it was more than a spore. It
had virus characteristics, and its propagation rate was almost
mathematically impossible. There was no known defense, and once
used, the entire planet was forever untouchable. To Saxon's
knowledge it had been utilized only once on Eden I.
At dusk, he took the lifeboat up fifty miles. He released the spores in
a widening spiral, and finally jettisoned the tank. He went into an
orbit at ten thousand miles, and waited.
It would take approximately a week.
It was a long week. Saxon slept little. He paced the cabin. He looked
at the stars and thought about a blue-eyed waif with tears in her
voice, begging him to stay.
After a week the lifeboat came down at the edge of a grassy plain.
Saxon took a sample of the contaminated atmosphere to determine
propagation rate.
The atmosphere was pure.
Some freak of expansion. One uncontaminated spot in a hemisphere
of death.
He selected another location. Then another. That evening he close
the coordinates of his original landing site and tested the air again.
Finally he went outside the airlock. He breathed deeply, and the air
was fresh and sweet, it smelled of forest and cool streams and
evening dew. In the blue dusk birds twittered. A small marsupial
very much like a squirrel scampered to the safety of a tree and
scolded him.
Saxon began walking.
At the edge of the forest he saw the familiar plowed field. The
farmhouse was a friendly beacon in the twilight.
"Hello," Veena said. She stood at the edge of the forest. She was
smiling. "Welcome home, rover."
For the next few days Saxon was the perfect guest. He argued
philosophical abstractions with the family by firelight; by day he
hiked in the woods with Veena and listened to Mentor give her
lessons. He asked questions.
"Veena, do you know what a microorganism is?"
"Benevolent or malignant?"
"Malignant. A plague."
She pursed her lips. "Organic or cultural?"
"Organic of course."
"Bacteria." Veena shrugged. "Quite a few of the first generation died
immediately after the landing. Until they adapted. Until they
analyzed the basic metabolism of the planet's dominant life-forms,
and constructed a neutralizer."
"A neutralizer?"
"A protective shell of ionized particles," she said patiently, "keyed to
the individual body-chemistry."
"Classified information," Mentor droned.
Saxon licked his lips. "You mentioned cultural microorganisms?"
"Much more deadly. I call them that, but Lang says I'm being
semantically unsound. War, for example. Racial inferiority. To date
we haven't found a cure." She broke off, and her eyes were shining
wet.
"But you don't have wars," Saxon said.
"No."
"Then?"
"We have a—ghetto," the girl said slowly. "I can't tell you about it.
Perhaps soon—"
Abruptly she changed the subject.
Slowly, Saxon's defenses began to crumble.
To all intents he was now a member of Lang's household, Veena's
adopted big brother.
Big brother—or pet?
It did not really matter.

On the fourth day he went back to the lifeboat. He remembered his

graduation day, the crash of the Corps anthem, and the pledge. I do
faithfully swear to uphold the ideals of Man, to use this vested power
for the absolute good of Earth. I will not shrink from any cup of duty,
regardless of how bitter. I will guard stasis with my life, and the lives
of innocent people if need be, people whose only crime may be that
they are potential threats to stasis—
He tinkered with the ship's reactor for an hour. Then he ran.
Behind him the lifeboat dissolved in a white blossom of flame.
Farewell the cold stars and the ache and the loneliness. Farewell the
destruction of newborn colonies to secure the rotting stagnancy of
Earth.
He would have a great many bad nights, but he was used to bad
nights. He thought of Veena and his stride quickened. She would be
a beautiful woman.
They were waiting for him back at the farmhouse, Lang, Veena and
Merl. They were staring at the dark pyre of smoke in the forest.
Saxon took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "I've got a
confession to make—"
They weren't listening. Lang said quietly, "You were right, Veena. He
may qualify."
"Come." Merl took her husband's arm. "Let's call the Council."
They went inside. Saxon looked at Veena. He moistened his lips.
"You knew," he said.
She nodded. There was a queer adult maturity about her as she
said, "Wait. They're calling an emergency Council meeting to decide
if you're fit."
"Fit," Saxon said. Coldly, it seeped in. To survive? To be a playmate,
a slave? "It's been a game," he said, grasping her shoulders. "You've
known all along."
"They're taking the transmitter to the Landing Site now," she said.
"Would you like to watch?"
Watch judgment of the outcasts on one of those who had marooned
them? Why not?
Lang and Merl were no longer in the house. Veena touched a silver
stud in one corner, and one side of the room dissolved from a vista
of golden wheat to a grassy amphitheatre. There were people
assembled in the clearing. Lang and Merl stood on a mossy dais,
making a speech.
He saw the ship.
It was a giant silver ovoid, fretted with strange vanes, pockmarked
by the red cancer of rust. Towering forest patriarchs guarded that
ship like a woodland shrine. A ship that had never been born on
Earth. An alien ship.
Understanding came, and a quiet horror.
He lurched away from the screen, away from Veena. He was outside
now, and running. He was a good Inhibition agent, he had been
conditioned to the shock of alien concepts for half his lifetime, but
the ground reeled beneath him as he ran and he could feel the hot
trickle of blood where he had bitten through his lip to keep from
screaming.
Aliens.
From outside.
Homo Superior, treating his ape-brother with an hospitable
contempt. Playing their inscrutable game.
The lifeboat came down almost in front of him.
It came down with a whining snarl and settled into the plowed field.
The airlock opened. Primus Gant stepped out. His blue eyes were
very cold and he was smiling.
"Report, Commander."
Years of conditioned reflex brought him erect, made him whisper,
"Mission unsuccessful." He swayed, almost fell. Gant held him.
"Easy, lad. We got the blowup a few minutes ago. It took us awhile
to home in on the distress transmitter in your utility kit." He chuckled
at Saxon's blank stare. "Whenever an agent's ship is destroyed his
utility belt automatically functions as a distress signal."
Saxon shook his head painfully. "You've been waiting?"
"We started ten days ago when your monitor gave out with the
annihilation alarm." He eyed Saxon keenly. "Just how bad is it?"
Saxon told him. Gant's face turned a dirty white.
"Aliens," he said thickly. "They probably murdered the original
colony. You've come through nicely, lad. It may mean promotion."
He turned into the ship. "Come on."
"Wait." Saxon's voice was a dry whisper. "You're not going to—"
"Demolition," Gant said. "I've got a task force up there that can
crack a planet. Let's go, Commander."
I will not shrink from any cup of duty—
"Please," Saxon said huskily. "I don't believe they're inimical to Man.
They're altruists."
"So?"
"They're benevolent," Saxon pleaded. "Both races can live together!"
"Don't be a fool," Gant grunted, and turned into the airlock.
Saxon leapt.
One palm came down hard at the base of the Director's skull.
And Gant twisted. He palmed the younger man with two deft blows,
throat and plexus. Saxon slumped, retching. Gant stood above him,
his smile strained.
"Amateur," he panted. "I was instructing hand tactics before you
were born." He took out his blaster. "They've infected you," he said
compassionately. "I'm sorry, lad. You'll get a posthumous
decoration."
The blaster came up, steadied. Then Gant stood very still, a white-
haired statue.
Mentor came around the ship and helped Saxon to his feet.
"Destroying guests is forbidden," the robot clicked. "The concept is
irrational."

Later, in the shadows of the farmhouse that was not a farmhouse,

Saxon watched the scout disappear into the sky. He turned towards
Veena. "You're letting him go?"
"Mentor—treated him," she said dreamily. "He'll report that you
destroyed the colony, died in the process, and this planet is unfit for
further colonization. Incidentally, the council voted in the affirmative.
Otherwise you'd be with Gant."
Aliens, playing a game with their ape-brother. Recognizing him at
first glance, speaking his language, making him feel wanted, at
home.
Why?
He was afraid to ask the question.
"We're on a vacation," Veena said. "We've only been here for one
generation. We were due to return almost thirty years ago, but we
found your colony."
"Did you—"
"Isolation," she murmured. "The ghetto. They're sick," she said.
"Infected with the culture plague. We couldn't leave them and we
couldn't help them." Her gaze was very steady. "Until you came."
It came to him. Man, clutching at the knees of Gods, envying,
striving futilely, finally hating.
Only Man can help Man.
"It's not fair," Saxon breathed. He took Veena by the shoulders,
made her look at him. "I'm happy here. You and Lang—Merl—I'm
just beginning to learn! I'd hoped that in a few years—"
"We are not human," Veena said gently. "And our life span is four
hundred of your years."
For the first time, he noticed the faint malformation of her ears, the
subtle differences in facial bone structure. He glanced past her, saw
Lang and Merl waiting in the doorway.
"It will mean months of study," she said. "You have so much to
unlearn, to understand. They may reject you, sacrifice you. That will
not matter. What does matter is your impact on their culture, what it
will mean a thousand generations hence."
Diseased apes, with a touch of Godhood, suffering from an infection
that might be forever incurable. Why should he be the sacrifice?
Who was he, to help them?
Looking at Veena, he knew the answer.
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