Julian said indignantly, “Just one minute. Suppose there’s something in my notes I don’t want some goddamned biographer to see?”

“Don’t be silly. Anything of yours in the data banks can be wiped any time you wish. Your notes don’t have to remain if you don’t want them there. Or you can simply make a requirement that they are available to no one but you until such and such a date—or never.”

“Suppose I’m out somewhere without a voco-typer handy?”

“Then simply record your material by voice into your transceiver, ordering that it be put into the data banks in print.”

He shook his head. “Every day, I realize all over again how much there is for me to learn. Why, it’ll take me the better part of my life to reach the point you’re at now. How about a drink, Edie?”

“I’ll get it,” she offered, rising. She headed to the auto-bar. “Scotch for you, I suppose?”

There was a distressed look in her eyes when she handed him his whisky. “I don’t know what to say, Jule. I heard father tell you about the so-called knowledge explosion the other day, but I wonder if you completely followed through on the ramifications.”

“You mean that quote from Dr. Robert Oppenheimer that human knowledge is doubling every eight years?”

She nodded. “You see, he made that statement about 1955. So let’s take the year 1940 as the takeoff point. In the following eight years, various major breakthroughs were made, including nuclear fission, the first space ship, the German V-2, the first practical radar, and, in medicine, penicillin and the sulfas.