"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."