"Is this the chentleman? Ach! It's amazing! How did it happen? You were standing right in the path of the ray, nein?"
"I think so, Dr. Wolstadt. Didn't you suspect what effect the beam might have had?"
"Never!" said the physicist. "Not until I saw your mathematics. It's unbelievable to think this could happen!"
"For Heaven's sake!" said the President. "What happened?"
Wolstadt turned around to face the Chief Executive.
"It's very simple. The derivation of the Q-beam that I have been working on got out of control for a second. It went through all my files, and all the files in the Pentagon, and Heaven only knows what else. It picked up all that information and put it in Mr. Merriwether's mind!"
"Amazing!" said the President.
"Fantastic!" said the Secretary of Defense.
"Will it work with anybody?" the President asked.
Dr. Wolstadt shook his head. "No. This is a most unusual case. Mr. Merriwether, according to the FBI reports, had a terrible memory before the accident happened. He is actually a very intelligent man, but he always forgot things, and that made him look stupid.