Short Science Fiction

Electron Eat Electron

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.