"The dialectric isn't suited for computers," he said. "You tried to find one that was. I tried that too, and covered your ground. Then I asked myself, if it isn't suited to computers, what is it good for? It's no good for computers because it doesn't discharge completely. Or rather, it does and it doesn't. Its structure is altered by the saturation charge and subsequent discharge in the computation processes. But random and not-so-random charges build up again for some reason, and interfere with computations after the machine has been used a few times. I puzzled over this. It was too much like true memory. I think what we have in this computer setup is more like a non-living thinking brain than a simple computer. If we change the bleeder leaks to the control grids--or maybe even cut them out altogether so that the basic charge doesn't dissipate, and feed in something other than figures and equations we can find out. Another thing, we'll have to shield the charge circuits. I've been looking at those completed computers in the back room. The charge circuits have unshielded sections that can act like untuned radar antennae--a little too short in wavelength for radar, but there's all kinds of unknown infra-reds bouncing around." What he was saying had penetrated with an impact that left me paralyzed and cold. A million things clicked together in one final synthesis of the problem of my identity. "I think you might have something there," I heard myself say. "Uh, don't touch any of those computers in the storeroom. Try some unused dialectric mix and start from scratch. Get to work on it right away." I waited until he had gone back to his bench--the one I had considered mine when I was so sure I was Fred Martin. I was trembling in every muscle as I stood up, even though I knew that outwardly I appeared to be a bored and indifferent lab boss. I crossed over to the door to the storeroom where the abandoned computers were stored. When I reached it I paused and looked around the lab. My two new assistants were busy at their benches. They weren't looking my way. I went in and closed the door, placing my back to it. In front of me was an aisle. Walling the aisle were two tiers of open box storage spaces. Some of them were empty. In several dozen were computers, all constructed in this lab, all identical, and all unusable because they held random charges that produced errors in mathematical calculations. It was like a tomb here in the storeroom. Quiet. The computers rested in their niches like bodies in a morgue. And one of them was me. Here, somewhere, was my body. It was a neat body with its brown crackle finish and orderly keyboard. But it was like all the others and there was no way of telling which one was me. I took step after slow step, pausing at each one, trying to probe with mental fingers and find some indication of which I was. I paused at each, and when I was through I still didn't know. * * * * *