Part 1

EDDIE

BY FRANK RILEY

_It's no surprise that the top brass was in a complete swivet; Eddie knew answers to questions that weren't even asked. What's more_, nothing _was a secret with him around!_

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, December 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

_Philip Duncan, the St. Louis attorney and former FBI agent, who wrote the definitive "History of Espionage", observes that in all the records dealing with spies and counterspies there is no more significant case than that of Dr. John O'Hara Smith, an electronics research engineer. Duncan maintains that Dr. Smith, whose rather quixotic name is real and not assumed, contributed more to the advancement of espionage and counter-espionage methods than any one person in history._

_For a period of more than a year, the case of Dr. John O'Hara Smith was known to only a few security and defense officials. The first public reference to it came on November 22, 1956, when an assistant to Secretary of Defense Wilson obliquely commented on it in testimony before the House Military Affairs Committee. Subsequently, more details were leaked to several Washington correspondents, and then vigorously denied. A brief account of the matter appeared on an inside page of the New York Times, but aroused no general interest._

_As a matter of fact, so little is known about the entire case that several of the people who were in on its early phases are still not sure whether Dr. John O'Hara Smith is alive or dead, or whether he was a spy or counterspy._

_However, on the basis of information now declassified, plus two highly technical papers presented to the Institute of Research Engineers, anyone sufficiently interested can reconstruct most of the case._

* * * * *

It began at approximately 7:15 P.M., August 11, 1955, when Dr. John O'Hara Smith returned with a bag of groceries to his house trailer in the Mira Mar Trailer Park, overlooking a long blue reach of the Pacific Ocean, some twelve miles south of Los Angeles. He put the groceries on the drainboard beside his spotless two-burner butane stove, carefully flicked away a speck of dust and then stepped eagerly toward the rear of his trailer, where an intricate assembly of tubes and wires occupied what normally would have been the dining area.

Dr. Smith flipped on a switch, and then received what he later called, in his precise, pedantic way, a split-second premonition of danger.

The Go-NoGo panel light flashed and went out; the transistor looked grey instead of red; the wires to the binary-coded digitizer were crossed; the extra module in the basic assembly had not been there that morning....

Dr. Smith methodically catalogued these details, and he stepped backward, just a breath of a moment before the low hum sharpened to a whine. He tripped, and in falling his left shoulder knocked open the door to the small toilet closet. Instinctively, he writhed the upper part of his body through the narrow doorway. His thick-lensed glasses fell underneath him, leaving him practically blind.

His elbows and knees were still making frenzied, primordial crawling movements when the detonation brought a wave of oblivion that almost, but not quite, preceded the pain.

* * * * *

A squad car from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department turned in the first report:

_John O'Hara Smith, male, white, about 45; critically injured by explosion in house trailer; removed by ambulance to General Hospital; explosion occurred at...._

Two days later, the Sheriffs Department apparently closed the case with a one-line addition to its original report:

_Explosion believed to have been caused by leaking butane connection._

But, in the interval, other agencies had entered the case.

The first was the Industrial Security Office attached to the Western Division of the Air Force's Research and Development Command in the once suburban community of Inglewood, California.

When Chief Security Officer Amos Busch received a call at 11:32 the morning after the explosion, he automatically noted the time on his desk pad. The call was from Pacific Electronics, Inc., a subcontracting firm in nearby El Segundo.

The president and owner of Pacific Electronics was on the phone. In a tone that betrayed considerable agitation, he identified himself as Wesley Browne.

"One of my research engineers--my best engineer, dammit--was nearly killed last night in an explosion ... maybe he's dead now," reported Browne, his words breathlessly treading on each other. "There's something damn funny about this...."

Amos Busch wrote: Research engineer ... explosion ... nearly killed. Then he asked judicially:

"What do you mean by 'damn funny', Mr. Browne?"

"This engineer was working on our vernier actuating cylinder for the Atlas guided missile.... Just two days ago, he--he said he wanted me to know where his files were ... in case anything happened to him...."

Amos Busch was a jowly, greying man who gave the appearance of being slow moving. But before the president of Pacific Electronics, Inc., hung up, Busch had already used another phone and the intercom to put in motion a chain reaction that would deliver to his desk the security report on Dr. John O'Hara Smith.

There was nothing out of order in the report. There couldn't have been, or Dr. Smith wouldn't have been cleared for the ballistic missile program. According to the report, he had lived aloofly for all of his adult years. Even as a boy, his sole interest had been to tinker with mechanical projects. His grades and IQ were high above the norm, and his attitude towards his classmates varied between impatience and out-right sarcasm. "I always thought John was a lonely boy," a former teacher had recalled to an FBI officer during the security check. "He never had anything in common with other youngsters." After obtaining his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin, he had worked for Allis-Chalmers Research Division in Milwaukee and lived with his mother until her death in 1951, when he bought a house trailer and moved to the coast. He had no close friends, no record of even a remote connection with any communist or communist-front group.

Security Officer Busch decided to visit the trailer, or what remained of it. He was not an electronics man, or even a normally incompetent do-it-yourself mechanic, but when he saw the shattered tangle of wires and tubes, along with the obvious remnant of a short-wave receiver, Amos Busch promptly called Major General David Sanders, commander of the USAF's Western Development Division.

General Sanders scratched his tanned bald head, and said,

"We'd better get the FBI in on this, Amos."

The FBI went to work with a thoroughness that made John O'Hara Smith's previous security investigation look like the processing of an application to join the Kiwanis. While agents sifted every detail of his life since the day of his birth, he was moved to a private room at General Hospital and three nurses cleared for security were assigned to care for him.

For eight days, Smith was in a coma. On the morning of the ninth day, he groaned, turned to one side and rolled back again. The nurse on duty put down her magazine and moved quickly to his bedside. She moistened a cloth and wiped the perspiration from his high forehead, brushing back the thinning tangle of fine, brown hair.

His eyes blinked open, stared at her. He whispered:

"Eddie ... what happened ... to Eddie?"

Remembering her instructions from the FBI, the nurse turned to make certain the door was closed.

"Was Eddie in the trailer with you?" she asked, bending closer to catch his reply.

He gave her a look of utter disgust, and tried to moisten his cracked lips with the tip of his tongue. But he drifted off again without replying.

This incident was duly recorded in the FBI's growing dossier, along with another conversation that took place in the office of Wesley Browne at Pacific Electronics, Inc. After carefully reviewing John O'Hara Smith's work record, FBI agent Frank Cowles inquired:

"Is there anything--anything at all, Mr. Browne--that you would consider out of the ordinary about Smith's recent actions?"

There was a trace of uneasiness in Browne's manner, but he tried to cover it by looking annoyed.

"I don't know why in the devil you fellows are spending so much time on Smith!... He sure as hell didn't blow himself up!"

"Of course not," Cowles said, placatingly. "But we never know where a lead will come from...."

He repeated the question.

Browne hesitated.

"I suppose," he began, shifting his big bulk uncomfortably, "this will sound kind of odd ... but you know we've got the subcontract to produce this actuating cylinder for the Atlas...."

The agent nodded.

"Well, six months before we were asked to submit specs and bids on such a cylinder, Smith came to me and said he had an idea for something the Air Force might soon be needing...."

Agent Cowles maintained his air of polite attention, but his cool grey eyes narrowed. Browne shifted again, and continued:

"I told him to go ahead--you never can tell what these research guys will come up with...."

"And what did he come up with, Mr. Browne?"

"You won't believe this, maybe--but he came up with the design for the complete vernier hydraulic actuating cylinder--including the drive sector gear--at least three months before we had the faintest idea such an item would even be needed!"

The FBI man's ball-point pen moved swiftly.

"Anything else?"

Browne instinctively lowered his voice:

"Smith even suggested that the cylinder would help to offset the roll and yaw in an intercontinental ballistic missile!"

A brittle edge came into the agent's courteous tone:

"Did you report this to security?"

In spite of the air-conditioning unit in the window, the president and owner of Pacific Electronics, Inc., seemed to feel that the room was getting very warm. He ran a fat forefinger under his white collar.

"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 $263.15. 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?"

"Certainly."

General Sanders moved a step closer to the bed.

"Any other ideas like that?" he inquired eagerly.

Dr. Smith's smile was neither wholly supercilious nor merely self-assured. It was a little of both, plus a lot of pure satisfaction at being stage center with his favorite subject. He cocked his head back and stared down his stump of a nose.

"You're working on a missile defense system for bombers, aren't you?" he challenged General Sanders.

"What about it?" hedged the General.

"Have you learned how to design a finned missile which can be launched across the bomber's airstream without being thrown off course?"

General Sanders ignored a warning glance from Amos Busch.

"Do you ... does this Eddie know how to do it?"

"Eddie says it doesn't matter!"

"What?"

"Eddie says what difference does it make if the missile is thrown off course by the airstream--as long as you can reorient it into a compensated trajectory. We were working on a new gyroscope principle that might do the trick...."

FBI Agent Cowles was always the personification of courtesy, but he could assert himself when necessary. He did so now.

"Excuse me, General," he interrupted, "but first there are some other matters we must go into with Dr. Smith."

The General nodded reluctantly. He took out an envelope and made some notes of his own on the back of it.

"Now, Dr. Smith," said Cowles, "let's get back to the explosion.... Why do you feel someone wanted to destroy you and Eddie?"

"I believe they had copied Eddie's circuit design and wanted to make sure another one wasn't built--at least in the immediate future."

"Why not?"

Dr. John O'Hara Smith showed a neat flair for timing as he waited just long enough to build suspense, before answering:

"Because Eddie knew that our security system for safeguarding the missile program is about as up to date as the horse and buggy!"

His words couldn't have been better chosen to startle his audience. Amos Busch took them as a personal affront.

"Horse and buggy!" he snorted. "You'd better spell that out, Dr. Smith!"

Smith's reply was prompt and precise:

"Eddie has concluded that human methods and minds alone are not enough to cope with security issues in an area where even the simplest technical problems must be handled by intricate computing devices...."

His owlish eyes moved from one man to another, trying to judge whether they were following him.

"You see, Gentlemen," he went on, "the technology we are dealing with is so unbelievably complex that the possibilities for espionage are multiplied infinitely beyond the capacity of a human intellect to grasp and evaluate...."

"For example," demanded General Sanders.

"For example," Smith retorted with equal sharpness, "what good does it do to surround ballistic missile plants with security regulations if the missile itself can be stolen right out of the air?"

"Fantastic!" said General Sanders.

"Nuts," said Amos Busch.

Agent Cowles said nothing.

John O'Hara Smith sank back against his pillow, panting a little. His high forehead glistened with sweat. When he gathered the strength to speak again, he directed his words to General Sanders:

"General, these ICBM missiles being fired into the Atlantic Ocean from the coast of Florida.... Are you sure you know what's happened to all of them?"

"I think so," the General answered calmly.

"And what about your own X-15 project, General?"

The question was almost a taunt.

General David William Sanders had jumped with his paratroopers into France on a morning in June, 1944. He had risen in rank through the test of battle and the more excruciating ordeal of the Pentagon. He was a rock-jawed, six-foot, two-hundred pound man whom little could shock and nothing could deter. But he had never faced a challenge like the seconds of silence that followed Dr. Smith's mocking question.

There was nothing he dared say, yet in saying nothing he was saying everything. FBI Agent Frank Cowles looked at him, then looked quickly away. Security Officer Busch studied his own hands as though discovering them for the first time.

The tableau remained frozen and silent until the door opened and a doctor said,

"That's all for today, gentlemen."

The three men left without a word.

Dr. John O'Hara Smith closed his eyes. On his pale lips was the suggestion of a smile.

* * * * *

When they were alone in the General's staff car, Amos Busch exhaled and said,

"I'll be damned."

"I gather," observed Cowles drily, "that something called an X-15 has turned up missing."

"A week ago," sighed General Sanders. "Somewhere in the Mojave Desert near Lancaster.... It was a very elementary prototype--the actual X-15 won't be ready for another three years...."

"Any idea what happened to it?"

"It was on a routine test flight and ran out of the tracking screen--headed northwest.... We haven't found a splinter from it! But there's a lot of rough country around there."

"Who knows it was lost?"

"Just the local base and our headquarters staff. The Pentagon, too, of course."

"And Dr. Smith," added Amos Busch, incredulously.

The staff car detoured off the freeway to deliver Cowles to the Federal Building.

"What do you make of this, Frank?" the General asked him.

"I'm just supposed to be gathering information."

"Oh, hell! We've been talking and you've been thinking--what?"

Cowles grinned.

"I've been thinking how lucky it is I don't have to make a decision about Smith!"

"So?"

"So we'll question him again tomorrow.... As long as he's willing to talk, the more he says, the better."

But, next morning, the medical staff again exercised its veto power. John O'Hara Smith had developed an infection and fever during the night. There could be no further questioning for the time being.

On the second day, when his fever ebbed, Dr. Smith irascibly ordered a pad of paper and began an interminable series of sketches. The nurse managed to sneak out a few of them, and FBI experts sat up all night vainly trying to figure out what they meant.

The following evening, when the last visitor's bell had sounded and the patients were bedded down for the night, Dr. Smith was staring unblinkingly into the dark shadows of his room. He had been given a sleeping pill at 9:30, but had held it under his tongue until the nurse left, and then had put it on the night table behind his thick-rimmed glasses. He seemed to be struggling with a problem. Once he turned on the night light, put on his glasses and made several rapid sketches that vaguely resembled a spider web.