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Read Ebook: Eddie by Riley Frank Orban Paul Illustrator
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Ebook has 347 lines and 10986 words, and 7 pages
"No," he admitted. "We got the contract, of course--it was a cinch!--and I just wrote it off as a lucky break.... You can see how I'd feel, can't you?"
"Yes," said Cowles, "I can."
Bit by bit, a new picture of the meticulous, professorial Dr. Smith began to emerge from the FBI dossier.
During the working week, his habit had been to keep his trailer in a small park just off Sepulveda Blvd., a half-mile from the Pacific Electronics plant. After work on Fridays, he invariably left for the weekend, usually for any one of a dozen scenic trailer parks along the coast between San Diego and Santa Barbara. He always went alone. No one had ever seen or met "Eddie". Outside of working hours, Smith's only association with his professional colleagues was through the Institute of Research Engineers. He attended monthly meetings, and occasionally wrote dry, abstract articles on theoretical research for the Institute's quarterly journal.
Under microscopic study and chemical analysis, investigators determined that nitro-glycerine had caused the explosion. The fused mass of electronics wreckage in Smith's trailer were identified as parts of a computer assembly. Thousands of dollars had been spent on components over the past three years. Purchases, usually for cash, were traced to various electronic supply companies in the greater Los Angeles area.
Dr. Smith's bank account showed a balance of only 3.15. But the big find came from a safety deposit box in the same branch bank. There, along with a birth certificate, his mother's marriage license, an insurance policy, his doctor's degree from the University of Wisconsin and an unused passport, was a duplicate set of computer memory tapes.
It took the FBI forty-eight hours to play a few selected segments from these tapes, which obviously had been recorded over a period of several years.
Two notations made by Agent Cowles indicate the type of material contained on the tapes:
"If a deliberate attempt were made to run a thermonuclear test explosion within the frontiers of Russia, in such a way as to avoid detection, it would almost certainly be successful...."
"The Soviet Union may soon develop a new ratio of fusion to fission energy in high yield weapons and will require additional data...."
FBI agents listening to these playbacks were convinced, almost to a man, that they had stumbled across the hottest espionage trail since the arrest of Klaus Fuchs and the case of the Rosenbergs.
A round-the-clock security guard was placed outside the hospital room of John O'Hara Smith, while Federal authorities waited impatiently to see whether he would live or die. Smith would answer, or leave unanswered, a lot of vital questions.
Security notwithstanding, it was the day after Labor Day before the medical staff of General Hospital would permit the first direct questioning of Dr. Smith. And then the interrogators were instructed:
"Only a few minutes."
Three men filed quietly into Smith's room as soon as the nurse removed his luncheon tray. They stood in a semi-circle around the foot of his bed.
Agent Frank Cowles opened a black leather folder the size of a small billfold and presented his credentials. He introduced General Sanders and Security Officer Busch. It was the first time any of the men had seen John O'Hara Smith. The reports had called him pudgy, but now he had lost twenty pounds and his cheek bones were gaunt under his pallid skin. He wore unusually thick, dark-rimmed glasses that magnified his eyes and gave him an owlish appearance. He returned their scrutiny with a mixture of assurance and impatience, like a professor waiting for his class to come to order.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he said tartly. "It's about time someone came to see me about this...."
Cowles cleared his throat and suggested cautiously:
"Then you're willing to give us a statement, Dr. Smith?"
"Don't talk drivel, man! How are you going to know anything about it if I don't make a statement!"
Though still weak, Dr. Smith's voice had a high, imperious quality. Clearly, he did not wish to waste time or strength on mere conversation.
The three men exchanged glances. Cowles and Amos Busch took out notebooks.
"Now, Dr. Smith," Cowles began, "what is your view as to the nature of the explosion in your trailer and the reason for it?"
"I'm an electronics research engineer, not an expert in explosives," Smith retorted with some asperity. "But as to the reason, I'm sure they wanted to destroy Eddie and me!"
He glared, as if daring anybody to challenge this statement.
"Eddie?" ventured Cowles.
"I try to speak plainly, Mr. Cowles.... I said 'Eddie and me'!"
General David Sanders rested two large hands on the foot of the white iron bedstead and squeezed until his knuckles bulged ominously. A volatile man, he had trouble with his own temper even without being provoked. But his voice was deceptively calm:
"Dr. Smith, do I gather that someone else was in the trailer with you at the time of the explosion?"
Smith grimaced expressively, and answered as if speaking to an eight-year-old:
"No, General Sanders.... I was quite alone."
After thirty years in the Air Force, Amos Busch was not used to hearing a Major General spoken to in this way. It violated his sense of propriety.
"Dr. Smith," he exploded, "just who or what in the hell is or was Eddie?"
With what was remarkably close to an air of incredulity, Smith looked slowly from one to the other.
"I gather you gentlemen haven't read my latest article."
"Not thoroughly," Cowles admitted.
"Then you don't know of my research work with an educatable computer," Smith said accusingly. Seeing that they didn't, he added: "I have named it 'Eddie'!"
"What ... what is an educatable computer?" ventured Cowles.
It was clear that Dr. Smith welcomed this question. His eyes glowed behind their thick lenses, and his high voice dropped its edge of sharpness.
"Eddie is a computer with a capacity to learn," he replied proudly. "It learns from assimilation of information and deductive reasoning--at a rate at least 10,000 times that of the human mind! That's why Eddie comes up with so many answers!... The only problem is, we seldom know what questions the answers answer."
His three interrogators had the look of men leaning into a heavy wind. General Sanders recovered first, and demanded:
"What the devil was it made for then?"
"Eddie was not designed for any specific task--that's why Eddie is so valuable ... and dangerous!"
Dr. Smith rolled out this last word as if he relished it.
"Do you realize," he went on, with careful emphasis, "that Eddie has solved problems we won't even know exist for another thousand years!"
This pronouncement was greeted by a moment of strained silence. General Sanders finally said,
"H-m-m-m."
He looked at Busch, who looked at Cowles, who asked:
"Does Eddie solve any problems closer to our own time, Dr. Smith?"
"Of course...."
"Did Eddie come up with the idea for that Atlas stabilizing cylinder?"
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