Electron Eat Electron

( Editor's note: When we had read through this in-a-class-by-itself story, we exclaimed, Here's PLANET'S scoop on the world! What do you think? Does Mr. Loomis answer the questions: How will future wars be fought? Will civilization be destroyed? )
Supreme General Hoshawk, chief of staff, watched with piercing gray eyes while the President of the United States of the Western Hemisphere, Jeffrey Wadsworth, lay relaxed under a cosmic-ray lamp, with no covering but a towel over his loins.
The surgeon-general of the Hemispheric Armies raised his hand, and the lamp receded.
Is that enough? Hoshawk asked dryly.
It's the maximum, even for him, said the surgeon-general. His reflexes will be faster than light itself.
Hoshawk grunted, his eyes narrow. As far as he could see, the speed of a man's reflexes, even of a man who was about to champion seven hundred million persons, wasn't as important as the man's loyalty or his sense of personal responsibility. And Hoshawk did not have much use for Wadsworth.
Augusto Iraola of Brazil, deputy president for South America, stepped forward from the group of forty men. He asked the President anxiously, How do you feel? Iraola was old and bearded.
Not bad, said the President, and his voice squeaked a little as it changed pitch.
The Minister of State, with a big portfolio under his arm, said, Shouldn't we prepare the vice president?
Morrison, vice president for Canada, spoke pedantically, It would be a tragedy to lose President Wadsworth. Last month his I.Q. was 340, nearly twenty points above any other member of the Mutant College.
Hoshawk barely caught himself in time to repress a snort. A boy of sixteen, no matter what his I.Q., was just a kid. You couldn't expect him to exhibit initiative or even to take things seriously. That was why Hoshawk had almost broken with the Hemispheric Congress thirty years before—almost two of President Jeffrey's lifetimes, Hoshawk reflected wryly.
The voice of the President, slightly amused, came to them. I'm all right now, he said. I think I ate too much ice cream last night. Nine dishes.