"Dr. Mintner," a voice said behind me.
I turned my head, startled. A man I had never seen before was standing there, a plastic lab apron covering his shirt front.
"What is it?" I said.
My thoughts were whirling. I was Mintner. I had always been Mintner.
"I think I know what to do about that problem of the dialectric," he said.
I smiled. The inexperienced fool. I had worked on that problem for two years. It wasn't going to be solved easily. "Yes?" I said.
"I studied it from a different angle than the one you did," he said. "That was what you suggested when I started here two months ago. Try new lines of approach."
"That's right," I said. I smiled encouragingly.
"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.